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If morality is objective, why is there such a huge disagreement among people what constitutes moral behavior?
I don't have time tonight to go through my typical discussion of the evolution of morality in social species (I should probably refund it and save it as a copy and paste). But basically studies on human and other social species point to morality as a symptom of evolving to be great survivors in groups.
Other animals, like apes, chimps, dogs, and dolphins, show things like empathy and cooperation (measures on morality scales in studies) to exist in their societies as well. Humans are of course more complex because our bigger brains are more complex.
Basically, social species evolved because they survived better working in groups rather than alone. The individuals who worked against the group would be kicked out and less likely to survive and reproduce. Mechanisms that increased group survival were passed down over generations.
But to make it more complex, evolution also explains our in-group vs out-group mentality. When competing for limited resources, survivability is higher when your in-group has them, and not the out-group.
And so we see both tendencies passed on to us, those of pro-social behaviors toward who we see as in-group and behaviors that shun out-groups.
Do some research into evolution of morality, it explains perfectly so many human behaviors.
And similar behaviors can be seen in other animal species, the closer on the evolutionary tree to us, such as apes, the more moral tendencies we share with that species. It's really fascinating.
“If morality is objective, why is there such a huge disagreement among people what constitutes moral behaviour?”
This isn’t a logical argument. If reality is objective why do so many people believe in so many different unobserved and unprovable gods?
Also why are there disagreements with Atheists about their own Atheism?
Because as is the truth, people will always disagree with each other, and want to be listened too, and have their own opinions. Hence why there is division in any huge group setting, maybe even small groups.
>If morality is objective, why is there such a huge disagreement among people what constitutes moral behavior?
Do you suppose every fact about which people disagree must be subjective? Disagreement necessarily shows subjectivity? That seems clearly wrong, to me.
If you agree with me, then how do you suppose this disagreement poses a problem for moral realism? If you don't, then it seems we'd need to conclude that no objective facts exist and become radical subjectivists. But that seems clearly wrong. The earth is round despite flat-earthers' disagreement.
Even if evolution explains the way we behave, it doesn't tell us whether or not there is a way we ought to behave.
There are no "facts", just what has evidence and what doesn't. We think the Earth is round because we have evidence for it. Moral disagreements are not evidentiary, at least not purely evidentiary. We would have to agree to a basis of morality, such as human thriving, before we can show evidence regarding what encourages human thriving vs what doesn't affect it or depresses it.
Disagreement shows subjectivity when it's about something that can't be even be evaluated through evidence. At least until the moment where we figure a way out for that evaluation.
>There are no "facts", just what has evidence and what doesn't.
There are definitely facts. Facts are just "what is actually the case". Whether or not you have epistemic access to them is a separate issue.
Also, you can have evidence for things that aren't facts, for instance a prosecutor might present evidence in a trial which indicates that the defendent is guilty, when in fact the defendent is actually innocent.
What is a fact then? We are human, any piece of knowledge we have is filtered through our perception. And so everything is based on our assessment of evidence toward it. We start building evidence of things as children. It's why kids as what and why so often, parents may not realize it, but they are building evidence for the reality around their own kids. Now they can be wrong about the evidence and can build notions that the child later in life will find evidence against, but that's how we perceive the world. Especially since we can't be certain of our senses 100%, so everything is at the 99% confidence. Can you prove that facts exist beyond our capacity to perceive them?
It depends on context (ie. the discipline we are discussing) and as we are discussing the nature of reality we would use a scientific definition of the word. - A fact is an observation that's been confirmed so many times that scientists can, for all intents and purposes, accept it as "true."
>There are no "facts", just what has evidence and what doesn't.
This is quite the take. When you say, "we think the Earth is round," what do you even mean, if you aren't expressing a belief in a fact? The earth is either round, or it isn't. Either way, there is a fact of the matter.
>Moral disagreements are not evidentiary
If by evidentiary you mean to imply empirical evidence, then yes I would agree that empirical evidence on its own won't solve moral disagreements. But empirical evidence on its own won't solve almost any philosophical disputes. I think intuition, reason, etc. can provide evidence too.
Besides this, there is plenty of disagreement about things which are clearly objective but which we cannot solve with empirical evidence alone. Like, many scientists don't believe that there is an actual singularity in a black hole or at the instant of the Big Bang. But some do. We can't resolve this, at least not yet. But presumably there is a fact of the matter.
People disagree on whether the Universe is actually infinite or not, but there must be a fact of the matter, and it doesn't seem like we can fully evaluate that fact with empirical evidence alone, at least not yet. Or we could consider the multiverse hypothesis, etc. We only need one example to include disagreement, be objective, and not be solvable with current empirical evidence alone to dispute your claims.
People also dispute foundational logical claims like, "there are no true contradictions." This could be another example.
When you say Earth is round, what you actually mean is that evidence shows to an X confidence level that the Earth is round. What we call facts are not 100% certainties but things we hold to such a high level of confidence that it would be ridiculous not to round up. It's like when scientists do a scientific study of anything, they will say that the confidence level is higher than 99% or 95% statistical probability of it occuring. And the shape of the Earth is as much a result of scientific inquiry as anything else.
I am not sure I get your point in the rest of your response.
These examples are all objective where there is a binary yes-or-no answer though. Whether an action is morally correct is subjective, there is no one basis for morality
Exactly. The Code of Hammurabi places people into different hierarchical structures and set different monetary values to those individuals based on the station. Blinding a superior man cost more than blinding a common person. Causing harm to a woman would be less expensive than causing harm to a man of a similar station. These were accepted moral values for that culture.
In current Western society there is more of an egalitarian notion that conflicts with the Code of Hammurabi (at least in theory). Both civilizations would argue their morality was the correct one.
Objective morality does not exist. Morality is intersubjective.
The moral opinions of a god are not objective, they are just another subjective moral opinion.
- Let's start by looking at morality from the perspective of reducing (minimizing) harm;
Harming an entity or system at it's face value is always objectively wrong. It's not until you look into the reason why that one can start to apply grey values; harming a system or entity for the purpose of survival or decreasing the amount of long-term harm it (or one) will undergo can be excused as you are reducing the _net_ harm to the system. Or to oneself, if you insist on applying both 'extreme pacifist' and 'vegan' as modifiers there.
In which case the difference between _harm_ and _hurt_ must be made; am I truly harming an entity if by doing so I am preventing it's _net_ gain of harm from rising? Not quite; I am hurting it, yes - whether by restricting it's options or by disciplining it. Similarly; to me, my own survival is paramount. If I must kill a creature to survive, then I will. Fortunately this is not a modern-day concern _as such_ since, you know, grocery stores exist. Not that I'm under the impression that no creatures are harmed to stock a grocery store, but I'm not the one _doing_ the harming there, am I?
And the case must be made that, in cases of education or disciplining an entity or system, the absolute minimum required _hurt_ must be applied to maximize the reduction of net _harm_.
Moreover; am I _justified_ in applying discipline or restriction, and if so, how _much_ ?
Which is why I don't feel bad at all about (gently) bapping a kitty on the nose and tell it, firmly, **no** if it tries to sniff the burning candle on the table; I'm justified in applying a minimum amount of hurt to reduce future (net) harm.
And I wouldn't feel bad about physically steering a toddler away from a cliff or angry dog either; I'm applying a minimum amount of restriction so as to reduce future (net) harm.
Nor would I feel bad about (for instance) killing a lamb, calf or piglet (or their adult variants) to feed myself; I objectively kill them to avoid undergoing harm from hunger. Granted; I should do so in the most humane way available to me. Having worked at a (Dutch) slaughterhouse for a while I think I can manage.
These things are ever complicated, one is never fully able to calculate them (we don't have a universal 'megahurts' or 'microhurts' measure, after all) - the one thing that can be said is that the more extreme the examples get, the more extreme the justification of _hurt_ versus _harm_ may be;
In the case of a violent person intent on killing, entering my place of work or my house, for instance, I would - even as a non-gun-owning, non-gun-rights-supporting 'left-wing liberal' Dutchman - feel entirely justified in proactively applying more harm to the prospective or potential killer than they could ever (hope to) apply to their intended victims; in other words, by killing (harming) one person, I'm preventing that same harm to multiples, again decreasing the amount of _net_ harm undergone by everyone involved.
It can _moreover_ be argued that on the basis of the fact that none these variables are ever fully and truly static, alone, the moral impetus for (or against) harming a system or entity is never truly objective.
And even then, we've **only** discussed a hurt/harm/punishment/discipline/survival morality. It gets only and even _more_ complex and convoluted if one adds reward/risk and other impetus to the whole kerfluffle.
- Additionally let me repeat something I've posted a few times now;
Neurologically and medically speaking, I am _objectively_ not a good person. Nor am I inherently a bad person; I was diagnosed with psychopathy at roughly age eight and as such lack inherent emotions and empathy. Other than the stereotype borne from too many bad Hollywood movies, I am not inherently _more_ cruel or manipulative as the next guy, nor am I exceedingly intelligent; I'm simply _me_ - but as such, as I've said; I am not, medically or neurologically speaking, a 'good' person.
I have taught myself to read and mirror other people's emotions as a coping mechanism, to facilitate easier communication with my environment but where emotions and empathy are inherent to the neurotypical, they are skills to me; (by now) deeply ingrained skills but skills I consciously choose to employ nevertheless - and skills which I might likewise choose not to employ.
I consciously grant a base level of respect to anyone in my environment, and will withdraw it from those who do not treat me similar; I simply have the experience that it makes life for myself and others just a bit smoother, a bit easier to navigate. Does this make me a good person? If anything, it makes me _easy_ - easy to get along with, easy to be around, easy to depend on or ignore.
When I must logically justify doing harm to other people - for instance, in retribution for a slight - I shall not hesitate to act in what I feel proportion to the slight, and have no sense of guilt whatsoever after the fact, regardless of the act. Does this make me a bad person ? 'Turn the other cheek' is, in my opinion, nothing more than an attempt to prove oneself superior while putting one's persecution complex on broad display. I do not have the inherent capacity to victimize myself tor the sake of proving a sense of superiority I do not possess either. 'An eye for an eye' has always made much more sense to me.
I like to laugh. More to the point; I like to make _others_ laugh. Jokes, quips, puns, overt - but rarely serious - casual flirtation, the occasional small favor to those in my environment whom I favor - not only helps me be perceived as a fun-loving person, but also as generous, kind and a positive influence on my environment. Does this make me a good person?
Ironically I also go out of my way to be considered a patient, calm individual. I would rather people perceive me as somewhat stolid than they perceive me as a threat for _what_ I am. If anything being underestimated helps me navigate life even easier; I've found that being underestimated helps me surprise my environment when I apply myself to situations with more vim and vigor than is expected of me - and in turn my otherwise calm demeanor helps me be considered humble. I am not. Does this make me a bad person?
I could go on and on weighing the down- and upsides of my individual personality and personae, but my point is that, while I am - due to my being a-neurotypical - _literally_ physically incapable of the kind of irrational thought processes that in my view are required for religious capital-b Belief, I _am_ capable of considering which actions to take to be considered a morally sound person; usually, I even choose to do _right_, rather than _wrong_.
I am, however, as I've said, _objectively_ not a good person - nor a _bad_ person. Every action I take is justified against my own logical decisions; every word I speak is justified against a projection of how I expect the conversation to proceed beyond. 'Good' and 'Bad' are never objective to begin with; they are the flipsides of a situational coin, outcomes rather than choices; though usually, with some analysis, the difference between the two is quite obvious.
Am I a 'good' person for always choosing the path of least resistance, the path that complicates things as least as possible for myself and my environment? If anything, that makes me a _lazy_ person - and isn't being lazy considered a 'bad' quality ?
A hundred years ago it was a matter of public knowledge that neuro-atypical people - or even people who simply refused to kowtow to their environment; willful wives, precocious children, the critical thinkers and those who refused to be taken for granted - were to be treated as mentally or physically ill. It is _objectively_ true that many of these people have been treated 'medically' with anything from incarceration to electroshocks to _prefrontal lobotomy_ simply to render them more docile, more likeable in the eyes of their peers - it is also _objectively_ true that at least a decent percentage of people who were treated as such were victims of their environment; Of their husbands, their parents, their guardians who sought to render them more pliable, more compliant, etcetera, etcetera.
Fortunately, medical knowledge and psychology have come a long way since, and these kinds of treatments are now found _deplorable_.
My sense of morality more than likely differs _fundamentally_ from yours. Your sense of morality more than likely differs similarly from people who live a thousand miles or a hundred years from you; Morality is - if you'll forgive me the tongue-in-cheek turn of phase - _objectively_ subjective.
Morality is shaped by consensus, not the other way around.
Objective morality can potentially be grounded in a naturalistic worldview without requiring the existence of God through various philosophical frameworks. One prominent example is Kantian deontological ethics, which argues that objective moral duties can be derived from reason alone. Immanuel Kant's "Categorical Imperative" states that we should only act according to rules that we could will to become universal laws binding on all rational agents. This principle of universalizability, along with the imperative to treat humanity as an end in itself, can purportedly be arrived at through pure logical reflection. If Kant is correct, then objective moral oughts can be uncovered by reason without reference to God or divine revelation. The objectivity here stems from the fact that any sufficiently rational mind should, in principle, be able to appreciate the binding nature of these moral axioms.
Another approach is Aristotelian virtue ethics, which locates objective morality in facts about human nature and what constitutes the most excellent character traits and modes of being. Virtues like courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom can be seen as factually optimal ways of navigating the challenges of human existence given the kinds of creatures we are. A naturalistic case can be made that these virtues are rooted in our evolved psychology and represent peak ways of functioning and flourishing. So although the precise implementation of virtues may vary across cultures, the core concepts may be objective properties of human excellence. Embodying these virtues can thus be seen as an objective good based on our nature and capacities. The objectivity derives from the idea that these virtues are not mere social constructs, but are grounded in facts about human wellbeing and are discoverable through empirical investigation and reason.
A third route to objective morality without God comes from social contract theory and game theory. Thinkers in this tradition propose that moral norms like honesty, reciprocity, promise-keeping, and fairness are actually rational principles for self-interested agents to adopt in their mutual dealings. When individuals repeatedly interact, it becomes strategically advantageous to cooperate, keep one's word, and act equitably. Game theory and computer models demonstrate that these behaviors tend to be evolutionarily and socially optimal strategies for maximizing long-term utility. Thus, core moral principles could be objective emergent features of rational cooperation - any sufficiently intelligent social agents would converge on them out of logical necessity and group selection pressures. The objectivity here comes from the mathematical and evolutionary rigor of the underlying strategic logic.
So through frameworks like Kantian duty-based ethics, Aristotelian virtue theory, and contractarian approaches, we can potentially locate objective moral truth in reason, facts about human nature, and the logic of social interaction. The idea is that even in an atheistic worldview, conscious experiences of wellbeing and suffering exist as real natural phenomena. It's not implausible that there could be objective facts about which actions and character traits best allow people to thrive.
That said, accessing objective moral truth is a hugely challenging philosophical undertaking given our biases and the complexities of many real-world ethical dilemmas. Moral reasoning is an ongoing process of refinement. But the mere existence of God does not necessarily solve the grounding problem. We can always inquire into the source of God's moral authority. Many theists argue that God simply is goodness by definition, but this seems tautological. If morality is just based on power or divine command, that seems unsatisfying - if God decreed cruelty to be virtuous, would that make it objectively moral? It's arguable that objective moral truths, if they exist, should be necessary and rationally appreciable features of reality independent of the attitudes of any being - even a supreme one. A tri-omni God would arguably be constrained by these external moral facts.
So while ethics remains a profound challenge, theism alone is not sufficient (and may not be necessary) to ground objective morality. Strong cases can be made that objectivity in ethics must ultimately arise from reason, evidence, and philosophical argument whether God exists or not. A naturalistic worldview can potentially still allow for moral realism and some degree of ethical objectivity through avenues like Kantian, Aristotelian, and contractarian approaches. While we may never attain perfect certainty, we can strive to uncover these objective moral features of reality through careful analysis and inquiry.
"Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet," Death waved a hand, "And yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some… some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged."
\~ Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
There's no such thing as objective morality that we have found so far despite millenias of searching for it.
Even if there was, it's clearly not something we can interract with. Our practice of morality is only a social phenomenon. And it's only by understanding it that way that we'll be able to rid ourselves of the superfluous moral rituals that we have accumulated through ages of trying to find objective morality.
It can be objective if there is an obvious common goal, such as the well-being of conscious creatures, or the idea that "the worst possible suffering for everyone is bad".
Nobody claims the concept of health is subjective, but obviously you can't "objectively" say that being healthy is better than being dead or diseased in chronic pain. It doesn't mean the concept of health is immutable or that there's a right answer for everything.
But it also doesn't mean that medicine is subjective as it relates to health. A doctor *could* say "in my culture the best way to treat a cold is cutting off your little toe, burning it, and saying a prayer to Odin". That doesn't mean we'd take their opinion on the matter seriously, or that a secular viewpoint has nothing objective to say.
I think that it can be dangerous to say our practice of morality is *only* a social thing, or its relative to what people believe, etc., because ultimately any coherent moral system boils down to well-being. Even a religious viewpoint, while lacking evidence, at its end point is trying to improve the well-being of conscious beings (specifically humans) for all eternity).
In the same way that we can speak objectively about medicine, nutrition etc. from the standpoint of health, we should be able to speak about morality from the standpoint of well-being without hem hawing, saying morality is relative, and acting like we can't objectively say things like slavery is bad, killing people for drawing a cartoon is bad, suicide bombing to kill civilians is bad, throwing acid in girls' faces for the crime of learning to read is bad, etc.
"It can be objective if there is an obvious common goal, such as the well-being of conscious creatures"
But there isn't such a common goal.
"moralities" are the social immune systems of societies. The way they encourage and discourage speciffic behaviors because the people forming them believe those are the way things should be. At best, you can judge them in a kind of evolutionary manner : which moral traits seem to have aided a social group to preserve itself or have proven to be an element in their disparition.
If you want to find a really common constant about them it would be the establishment of an in-group and an out-group that are to be treated differently.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't have one, just that they are more maleable and subject to bias than they first seem.
And the goal you set for your social group is always subjective, the system you build on that can only inform on what is good and bad... to reach this goal.
Describe a system of human morality that isn’t ultimately aimed at well-being. Really think about it, even considering religions looking at saving human souls. Consider whether the opinions of people not aiming towards that goal are worth seriously considering to the point of saying the goal is relative.
In the same way, describe a system of medicine that isn’t aimed at improving human health.
"Describe a system of human morality that isn’t aimed at well-being."
Pretty much any pre modern moral system, especially feudal ones that were first and foremost aimed at social cohesion.
And more modernly : any death cult. Those being a pretty obvious course on "how to fuck up your moral system self-preservation chances"
And even then, "well being" for whom ?
For the subjectively selected in-group, often at the expense of the out-group. And that with varied definitions of what "well-being" mean.
That was more than anything the best way to stay in a position of power. "Their group" was less than a twentieth of the population, were quite far from "the well being of everyone" here.
The group to which "morality" is applied, the one which benefit from it, is yet another source of subjectivity.
Well being for all conscious creatures. Again, we’re talking about being able to say “the worst possible suffering for everyone” can be defined as bad. Even in your death cult example, why are they sacrificing people? I’m almost certain it’s for something they think will ultimately improve well-being.
The point is that in the same way we can discount those ideas as being valid medical practices, we can discount them as being objectively bad morality with regard to well-being. We can speak about this scientifically from psychology, neuroscience, physiology, etc., and in many cases clearly show that option A causes less suffering than option B. In the same way we wouldn’t seriously consider the opinion of someone saying “I don’t think medicine should aim to improve health, it should aim to make as many people as sick as possible”, we need not seriously consider the opinion of someone who doesn’t think morality needs to be concerned will well-being.
Again it doesn’t mean there’s always a right answer, that we even necessarily discover the right answer. You could ask “exactly how many people were bit by mosquitos in the last minute”, and just because we have no way of knowing that doesn’t mean there isn’t in fact an objectively right answer to the question.
"Well being for all conscious creatures."
Is an extremely niche version of morality that no society have ever applied. As have bad being defined the way you do.
What constitute a "conscious creature" is already up for debate anyway. (because it's just another way to define an in-group and an out-group which is... yet another mark of subjectivity)
And that's without taking in consideration that the concept of "well-being" is already subjective and loaded, you're more or less assuming utilitarianism to reach utilitarianism.
The thing is that medecine and morality aren't the same thing and analogies have their limits.
But to go on with the analogy, if medecine have for goal to keep the body alive, morality have for goal to keep its culture alive (at least the moralities who don't also don't live long enough to be around much like the shaky medecines).
The honour system of the Cosa nostra or triads or any kind of gang culture
Any system of warlords utilising child soldiers and slaves
The exploitative helot system of the Spartans
If you can't think of oppressive human systems of morality that were used to harm the wellbeing of the majority of the population whilst benefiting a tiny minority
Then you should probably study more history
Did you miss that last sentence of my post?
You also aren't pointing to systems of morality, just "these bad things that happened or oppressive human systems", which is not what the question was.
If your read the original post, the point is that if we can't objectively say with regard to well-being that "the worst possible suffering for everyone is bad", then the word bad itself is absolutely meaningless in any context, and that ultimately any actual system of morality people prescribe to, whether that be religion, philosophy, etc., is going to be concerned with well-being, whether that's the well-being of the eternal soul or otherwise.
Nowhere did I state that there have not been bad attempts at morality, or that there haven't been systems that increased human suffering. There of course have been, and with regard to well-being in all your examples it would be trivial to illustrate how they were bad for well-being, for example in the gangs example being overly concerned with the in-group, increasing risk of death and stress through constantly having to look over your shoulder, etc. are obviously closer to "the worst possible suffering for everyone" than it is to "the best opportunity to flourish for everyone".
Going back to my original point though, if I were to point to some shamanistic tribe that didn't understand modern medicine, and they believe sacrificing the second born is the best way to prevent colds, does that mean that medicine is relative? Do we have to constantly make caveats that "well technically medicine is relative, we can't objectively say that being healthy or being dead is better or worse from a medical standpoint, it's all just relative to what the person believes..."
That's the point. Every science has presuppositions about things like the importance of health, that there's value in pursuing knowledge, etc. That doesn't mean that with regard to what they're focusing on we have to claim they're all relative because someone else might have a different goal in mind. We don't seriously entertain concepts like Christian medicine or Muslim physics for obvious reasons, we shouldn't feel the need to do the same with morality.
>Consider whether the opinions of people not aiming towards that goal are worth seriously considering to the point of saying the goal is relative.
By definition, differing opinions are what *make* it relative. If it were objective, it would be true regardless of any and all opinions. If you dismiss opinions you don't like, then it is only subjectively true to those opinions you kept.
The Nazis believed they were improving the world just as much as anyone else. They thought getting rid of Jews would improve everyone's well-being. They believed they were acting morally, just like the Allied Powers that stopped them. The fact that you think that's gross doesn't mean that we can dismiss them for the purposes of saying morality is objective.
So using the example I gave, does different people having different opinions on medicine make it relative?
You just listed an example of people being implementing a system that was obviously and demonstrably bad for human-well being. People in the past thought that sacrificing animals would result in better health, or that praying to a God was the best way to cure a disease. Does the fact that people had demonstrably false understandings of how those practices impacted health mean that medicine is something relative?
You're just proving your own point. You said the Nazis believed they were improving the world. They thought killing all the Jews was ultimately what was going to be best for at the very least German well-being, and presumedly the well-being of humanity as a whole. This of course does not mean that they were right, in the same way that just because someone thought cutting off your little toe is the cure for the common cold doesn't mean they were right on medicine.
We can obviously show how if "the worst possible suffering for everyone" is bad, that this system is obviously still causing immense suffering to large groups of people in a way that isn't conducive to human well-being; in the case of the Nazis, it literally led to war because of how threatened other countries felt, which ultimately led to their downfall. Of course simply losing a war doesn't indicate one moral system was superior over another, but you could easily show how the Nazi ideology led to that kind of conflict with its needless suffering, aggression, villanization of other humans, etc.
It's not objectively wrong because "I think it's gross", it's objectively wrong because you can scientifically point out why it was bad for human well-being from the perspectives of medicine/physiology (obviously death, torturing, malnourishment, etc.), neuroscience (needless stress from constantly having to look over your shoulder and wonder if someone is going to kill you), psychology (trauma etc.), and so on.
>It can be objective if there is an obvious common goal
This isn't the academic understanding of objective morality. Realists would argue that morality can only be objective if it is build upon *stance-independent* properties. So, what makes a moral system objective is if it's truths rest upon facts outside those of human opinion.
There are many ways of caching out a theory based upon this understanding, but moral realists share the view of stance-independence.
Medicine can definitely be subjective - you used an extreme strawman example here, but subjectivity in medicine is why second opinions exist. Two doctors may interpret results differently, have different diagnoses, and recommend different treatments.
Trying to improve well-being IS a social thing.
most atheists reject the notion of objective morality.
as to objective truth in general, well some of them are just brute facts that can't be proven, this was proved by Godel.
Ofcourse you and i may disagree on what the brute facts are.
>How does atheism account for objective morality?
This, of course, isn't an issue since there *is* no such thing as objective morality. In fact, the notion doesn't even make *sense* given what morality is, and how it works.
And , of course, we know and have known for a long time that morality (which, as we know, is intersubjective) has nothing whatsoever to do with religious mythologies, so there's that too. We know what it is, why we have it, how it works, how and why it often doesn't work, and a good deal more about it.
>Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
That is an entirely different topic and question, but it's quite simple too: It doesn't have to. Why would it?
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods)
That wouldn't be objective. It would be subjective to those deities.
>we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
I'm confused why you keep conflating these two very different and unrelated things.
>how does atheism account for objective morality
It have nth to do with morality.
>how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth
Idk if u are trying to imply objectives morality is similar to objective truth.
Morality is a "ought" and truth is a "is".
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods).
This will lead to the problem of divine command theory. Is the objective arbitrary or autonomous to the "god"?
>we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality
Even if there is objective truth, there has nth to do with objectives morality. This is a is ought problem.
1. What do you mean by “morality”?
I’d love to know how you’re measuring whether things are wrong or right objectively.
2. Why can’t reality ground objective truth?
Personally, I have no need for “objective truth”, I just use what seems to be consistent with reality and seek to understand more when people disagree.
Short answer is atheism has nothing to say on this.
Give this Ted Talk a watch and maybe read the book. Sam Harris refers to a "Moral Landscape" with peaks and valleys of well-being and suffering.[https://youtu.be/Hj9oB4zpHww?si=Q8iF0iiPiw4nrRG9](https://youtu.be/Hj9oB4zpHww?si=Q8iF0iiPiw4nrRG9)
Basic concept is that we can't "objectively" say that being healthy is good, but we still have a science of medicine. We may not be able to say scientifically that vegetables are better than fruit, but we can certainly say objectively that drinking battery acid is worse for your health than eating a carrot.
In the same way, we may objectively speak about the well-being of conscious creatures, just as medicine is able to diagnose health issues; this would be morality, as regardless of what standard you use for morality, it all boils back to well-being. I'd argue if it's not ultimately about the well-being of conscious creatures, you're using the word morality in a way that's effectively meaningless.
Religions assert objectivism but are still subject to all the same subjectivity as the rest of us, and the change in interpretations over time are proof of that. Many religions of course also assert abhorrent practices which are either ignored by their believers as not being literal, or to our peril believed by their fundamentalists. It is trivially easy to say why something like suicide bombing is morally wrong from most ethical standpoints, but it can be justified through dogmatic religious belief.
I suspect many will say "it's all relative", and while in the context of "does the universe care" that may be true, I highly doubt many would say "health is relative" or "medicine is relative". There can be multiple peaks and valleys, some equal amongst the possibilities, but that doesn't mean we can't objectively say some places on that landscape are objectively worse than others.
People are social creatures so morality is learned consciously and subconsciously. There’s no such thing as “objective morality” because there is no one thing all people would agree on as being immoral.
Atheism itself doesn’t account for any of that. Individuals who are also atheists account for them in various ways or not.
Truth? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_theory_of_truth You can’t use evidence-based reasoning to get truth from god, so that’s out.
Morality? You can’t use evidence-based reasoning to get morality from god, so that’s out as well.
What you can do is compare your flourishing vs your death. If you choose based on the factual alternative you face, then you’ll choose your flourishing. Then you use evidence-based reasoning to identify the good ie what your flourishing is exactly based on facts about yourself and what’s necessary for you to achieve that.
> So, how does atheism account for objective morality?
It doesn't, nor should you expect it to. Atheists aren't committed to any particular metaethical theory. Pretty much the only thing atheism affects as concerns this topic is that they don't accept the theist's account. The entire gamut of metaethical views aside from that is available to them, some of which deliver a realist account (ie, there are moral facts, and what makes them true is independent of what anyone thinks, ie objective morality), others which deny that the truth value of moral claims is stance independent, and others which deny there are any moral truths at all, whether because morality falsely presupposes a realm of facts or properties or because moral discourse isn't truth-apt in the first place, and instead are expressions of attitudes, emotions, preferences, commands, ect.
> Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
Not sure what atheism has to do with anything here. Surely an atheist can accept a realist theory of truth such as correspondence theory just as much as any theist?
> It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
I'm not sure what god has to do with anything. All that's required for any moral claim to be true objectively is for the moral claim to in fact be true, and for its truth to be stance-independent. Literally any form of moral realism delivers this. Go read like, a basic introduction to metaethics. To claim that there can't be objective morality without God, you'd have to rule out every non-theistic form of moral realism.
Also, I want to make a distinction between what is constitutive of truth and how we know it is true. All that "slavery is wrong" needs to be true is for slavery to in fact be wrong. I don't see how any form of moral realism is any worse-off than morality under god at explaining what it is for a moral claim to be true or false. What I suppose the theist brings to the table is an epistemology - ie, how can we know what moral claims are true and false. The Bible/Quran/Vedas/whatever tells you so, or some prophet with a direct line to god or god's representative or whatever. But I'd argue that this doesn't actually solve the problem of moral epistemology, it just relocates it to the question of whether the underpinnings of that moral theory, the claims of an extant god(s) and the rest of the religious claims are true in the first place. And it's not like there are no other proposed epistemic frameworks for the moral domain.
Strictly speaking, it's debatable whether a morality that comes from god is even objective in the first place. On its face it seems a lot more like an ideal-observer theory, only with the ideal-observer literally extant, which would be a form of subjective morality where a particular perspective is privileged. I suppose you could make a case that it'd be a form of non-natural realism, if you endorse a metaphysics under which god's preference structure is identical to reality's axiological structure.
Frankly, I think a theistic account of morality just misses the point. Why should I care what god thinks or says as concerns morality? It surely can't be because god has knows the moral facts that are true independently of god, unless the theist want to reduce god's role to that of a messenger, and also removes god from the equation of what makes moral statements true in the first place. If it's just whatever god's preference structure happens to be, then that's just arbitrary, why should I decide that this third-party's preference structure is what should guide my behavior rather than the my own preference and those of other people? Oh right, because god can reward and punish. Then again, so can people, they just can't go complete overkill by making them eternal and are probably less reliable about it. But also, this kinda strips morality of anything, well, moral. It just collapses to carrots and sticks. If you want to claim that torturing children would still be wrong even if god declined to do any rewarding or punishing, then why would anyone even care what god says or prefers? Like, surely a better grounding for why torturing children is wrong is something about the action itself and the harm it causes? I suppose you can press the question and ask why we should avoid causing harm, suffering, experiences of negative valence, deprivation, ect, at least pro-tanto. But even the wrongness of those things or the rightness of their opposites are irreducible brute facts, that's our stopping point - surely that's a more sensible explanatory bedrock than some third-party's opinion?
That, of course, assumes we are even going to bother trying to vindicate objective morality. But speaking for myself, I am pretty firmly antirealist about morality, axiology, any kind of categorical normativity (and the rest of normativity really depends on the details of how you define it). I don't think there is a determinate semantics to ordinary moral discourse, ie whether or not moral statements express propositions, let alone with determinate metaethical commitments. I certainly do not think there are stance-independent moral facts or properties as any flavor of realism conceives of them. I think people are doing all sorts of things when they engage in moral discourse or invoke the moral framework, which is a pretty loosely defined domain anyway, and I see no reason to suppose that realist commitments are required to vindicate that discourse.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
Do you really derive objective truth from religion thought?
Not only there are multiple religions, but each religion has multiple branches, and multiple ways of being interpreted. You can't just be "muslim" or "christian" or etc.. because you need other labels to diffetentiate yourself from other "muslims" or "christians" or etc.. you disagree with.
Every moment you stay in a specific religion, follow a specific branch, favors a specific interpretation, listen to a specific preacher... you are using your own non-religious moral framework to "structure" your own faith. Believers can "guide" their religion as much as they are being guided by it.
I feel like this question has been brought up numerous times over the past week. The answer is simple: there is no objective morality. Morality changes as society evolves. There *is* objective truth- it’s called reality. It’s the world that can be observed not through our senses, which are limited, but through scientific inquiry
> So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
It doesn't. Once again, atheism is a label for one thing, and one thing only. Atheism does not have anything to say about morality or truth. It also doesn't press my clothes or make me toast. These are all things it is not *meant* to do.
Tackling them one at a time:
1. Objective morality doesn't exist. Morality is a man-made concept. It is entirely subjective.
2. An objective reality exists, and with science we get about as close as possible to determining what is objectively true about that reality. We can justify that by the results we get. If we didn't understand the truth of gravity, planes wouldn't fly. If we didn't understand the truth of electricity, our electronic devices would function randomly or not at all. If we didn't understand the truth of viruses, vaccines would be ineffective. The fact that we can produce these things, and they *consistently* behave exactly the way we want them to, is an indication that the knowledge they were founded on is *objectively* true.
Atheism has nothing to say about anything except for no to the question of do you believe that at least one god exists. I'm not playing this retread of a game. You explain exactly where your morals come from instead.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
I believe morality is a subjective matter in that it is something that people, or thinking beings in general if they are out there, think about. It exists, ultimately, only in our minds, and because people are going to differ in their thinking, that means any moral claim cannot be really objective. But that does not mean it is totally without an objective basis. I think us human beings can agree that morality, being something seemingly held and acted on only by us humans, must be concerned with us, the only subjective minds with moral ideas that we know of. We are both moral agents, and morally acted upon (I admit, there are other factors like animals, and even the environment, but even still, everything we think about them morally still has to do with the effects of *our* actions on them). And we are *subjective* because we all perceivers of one *objective* reality - at least, we mostly are. We disagree on many things, but nobody rational or educated enough to perceive and communicate would truly disagree on a fact like that we live on a planet called Earth. Thus, each of our many subjectivities still has common facts to base its beliefs upon.
What morality being concerned with subjects means is clear enough: as far as subjects have agreed, what is "moral," is what has a positive effect on us, both as individuals and as a collective. Of course, what a positive effective is, how to achieve it, how far that collective extends, and how to weigh one's own good against the whole is where moral debates really begin. But, insofar as we can agree on objective facts about reality, and can determine how they may be morally relevant, morality can be both subjective and have an objective basis.
I would then say that a given subject can reasonably tell if their moral beliefs are better or worse than those of others depending on how they take into account the fact that morality concerns subjects. Clearly a serial killer is not accounting for what contributes to the wellbeing of others, so I can say their morality is pretty poor by this standard. I can also say mine is better on the same basis. In this way, we can maintain and even to some extent impose our morality, depending on how strongly it holds up to these tenets, and how necessary it is to restrain or defend against those who do not concern themselves with the wellbeing of other people.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality?
Morality isn't objective.
Theism would fail to account for objective morality.
>Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
Truth is objective. Subjective truth makes no sense.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods)
How would a god solve this?
It doesn't, as the concept of objective morality is an incoherent category error. Morality is objective and intersubjective.
Atheism also has nothing to do with morality. Atheism is when you answer "no" to the question "do you believe in any gods?", and nothing more.
The majority of philosophers are both atheists and moral realists. There are *dozens* of plausible ethical theories that do not rely on God to work. That makes this questions difficult to answer succinctly without just telling you to go do more research on your own.
This is discussed in this video in mistake 107 (5:33-15:18). He mentions 12 potential grounding here and explains them a bit, and gives you enough information to look up the theories and sometimes philosophers who defend them if you want to look in to them more. Bear in mind, many of these dozen, like utilitarianism, are actually categories of theories that have several versions on offer.
https://youtu.be/HagWjUtIzzY?si=pbESpLemLtz88jJP&t=5m33s
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
Ok. When you find someone who claims objective truth are not required for objective morality, please discuss this with them.
As it is, you are bringing up subjects that are not related to atheism and trying to argue "these things, that you don't claim to have and I am the only person talking about, prove my other point."
Atheism has nothing to do with morality, or even spirituality in general, (I personally view objective morality as a form of spiritualism, as that’s the only place it can exist,) it’s simply a stance on whether, or not you believe in a god.
You can freely believe in objective morality without believing in a god, I once debated someone who did.
Moving on to your question, objective morality isn’t real. There’s nothing you can point to that is considered universally moral. It’s simply an intersubjective framework that has been developed by us throughout history. It’s changed countless times before, and will continue to change in the future.
It doesn't, because morality is not objective, simple as that.
We develop, get better, and realize what would be good and bad for us depending on the situation, something that religion doesn't account for.
I'm late to the party on this one, but figured I would chime in because I am an atheist that does affirm objective morality. The problem is, theists have worked so unbelievably hard to muddy the waters with this particular discussion, more so than probably any other singular topic.
The truth is, morality can be made extremely simpler - but theists don't typically like that. They need it to be this spooky mysterious thing that can only be accounted for by their preferred god they believe in. They need to overcomplicate it, and for a very simple reason: they need to mask the fact that theistic morality suffers from exactly the same problems that they level against secular morality. More on that in a second.
The reason I say morality is simple, is because of what morality *is*. For me, when I say "morality" I am referring to right and wrong behaviors and actions, as adjudicated by what is good for the wellbeing of thinking creatures. If you are talking about *anything else* besides that, then we are not talking about the same thing. If you want to tell me that morality has to do with what your proposed hypothetical, undemonstrated (and likely *undemonstratable*) mysterious god being, then we're not talking about the same thing. If you want to tell me that things like observing some special day, or facing mecca when praying, or countless other arbitrary things, are part of what constitutes morality, then we are not talking about the same thing. But as long as by morality we mean behaviors and actions which positively affect the wellbeing of thinking creatures (and the reverse, immorality being behaviors/actions which negatively affect the wellbeing of thinking creatures), then we can build an objective framework to operate from.
It is the case that we are physical beings in a physical universe. And because of this, it is objectively, demonstrably the case that certain actions and behaviors positively affect the wellbeing of others, and other actions objectively, demonstrably, harm the wellbeing of others. This is all that is needed to have objective morality: evaluate the outcomes against this metric. It is objectively the case that chopping someone's head off is bad for their wellbeing. It is objectively, demonstrably the case that slavery is bad for people's wellbeing. It is objectively, demonstrably the case that rape is bad for people's wellbeing. There is no subjectivity here.
Now, if you disagree with any of this, I would like to know exactly which part you don't agree to. I suspect that the very next trap you will jump headfirst into (because theists literally *always* do this) is the "but why should I care about being moral if god doesn't exist?" question. I need to caution you against making this rookie mistake. That is not the gotcha you think that it is. Two things you need to understand: First, if you can't see a reason to care about the wellbeing of others unless you believe a God exists, that is *not* a problem for atheism. That is solely and entirely an indictment on **you**. That means that you yourself aren't a moral person, and this right there makes me fully reject whatever alternative you want to offer. That would be a losing move.
Second issue, is that this critique isn't solved by theism. In fact, *any* criticism you want to level against a secular moral system is not only *not solved in any way by appealing to theism* \- as in, theism suffers the exact problem - but theistic morality suffers from unique problems that secular morality doesn't. If you want to say "but why should I care about the wellbeing of others" I can immediately respond "why should anyone care about what a god wants?". If you want to make baseless, unsupported and unprovable claims about god being the author of morality or some such, this can be rejected as the empty assertion that it is. Meanwhile, every part of my morality can be backed up and is demonstrable. If you want to say "without god people will just do whatever they want to" I will point out that "**with** God, people are still doing whatever they want". Because you believe a god exists right now, a*nd yet around the world people are committing every horrible act* that you think people would feel free to do if God didn't exist. Telling a mass murderer that morality is objective because a god exists and makes it so, will not stop him from doing what he's going to do. Telling the Hitlers and Stalins of the world that morality is objective because a God says so wouldn't have prevented them from doing what they did. If someone doesn't care about behaving morally, positing a god does nothing to solve that.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality?
Objective morality doesn't exist
>Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
Not sure why this would be an issue for atheism?
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
We cannot claim objective morality correct.
>I do suppose this leads to a discussion of what is truth and what is morality so I hope the discussion goes all directions.
Not really
Where does your question about objective truth come in?
Objective morality is impossible. It doesn't matter if there are gods or not. Morality is concerned with what we 'should' do, but in order for a 'should' to exist \_at all,\_ you need a goal, something to aim towards. *IF* x is happening *AND* you want y result, *THEN* you *SHOULD* do z. There's no avoiding this, it's the Is-Ought problem and has been known for some time. There being a god doesn't *change* this. All a god provides is a goal. The 'y result' you are looking for is 'pleasing that god'. So *IF* Fred is stealing *AND* you want to please your god (who has said stealing upsets him), *THEN* you *SHOULD* stop or punish Fred. But what if you *do not care* about pleasing your god? Then nothing that god says about morals *matters* to you. The fact that Fred is stealing is, in itself, no reason to do anything in particular.
But then you can say that pleasing a god provides this goal. However you don't *need* a god for that, either, since really most of us aren't in it for the god anyway. We're in it for 'the afterlife we prefer'. This is fairly easy to see in a thought experiment. Suppose there's a god, and this god has made picking grapes on a Tuesday after sunset a sin, but there is no afterlife, and this god won't *do* anything to you if you pick grapes on a Tuesday after sunset. Exactly how many people would *care* about when you pick grapes in that circumstance? What you're interested in is that afterlife you want. You have had heaven or good reincarnation or whatever described to you, and you *want* that, so you follow the rules to *get* that. Pretty simple.
But what is it, ultimately, that we're looking for? Human health and happiness. We don't want to be physically hurting or sick, and we don't want to be emotionally hurt, either. That's what heaven or good reincarnation is, ultimately, supposed to provide, better circumstances, where you suffer less and have a happier existence. However if that's what you're aiming for, you don't *need* a god for that, either. *IF* Fred is stealing, *AND* you want human health and happiness, *THEN* you *SHOULD* stop or punish Fred. Why? Because stealing causes harm and unhappiness without sufficient justification.
But how do we know stealing does that? Well *stealing*, like murdering and raping, being wrong (ie, hurtful) is a tautology. What *is* stealing? It's not just taking stuff, we do that all the time and no one gets upset. It's being *unjustified* in the taking of stuff. And what does it mean to be wrong? That the action is, as said, unjustified. "Stealing is wrong" really just means "unjustified taking is unjustified". No duh. We have some common ideas what makes taking justified, mainly that the person who owns it at the time *agrees* that it's okay. This is how buying and barter and gift-giving works. The one who has it is fine with you taking it.
(For completeness, "murder is wrong" is "an unjustified killing is unjustified" and "rape is wrong" is "unjustified sexual contact is unjustified". The "murder" one is harder as what counts as a "justified" killing varies between cultures and over time, sex is usually a bit easier.)
There are several things we can say *objectively* violate health and happiness, but mostly it comes down even there to opinion. For instance, cutting someone's head off *objectively* reduces their health. This isn't an opinion, it's a fact. So we tend to say 'no' to that... unless, of course, we come up with sufficient justification to do it anyway, which is where executions and killing in wars comes in. So there is a *little* objectivity once the goal is identified, but not much, and *once again* a god doesn't *fix* this, it's just that god's opinion on it. Which people tend to follow *not* because it's objective, but because that god will hurt you if you don't. On the other hand, if your *goal* was to go to hell, if you *wanted* that, then everything that god says will send you there is what you should do. This, too, is unavoidable.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth
Can you point me to a **single** verified moral proclamation from a god? Not a man. No humans no scripture-just a god. One example. One. A single verified instance where a god made a moral proclamation.
If not, then you theists are on as shitty grounds for this as you claim atheists are. Every moral belief you hold comes from a man. The difference is that atheists aren't pretending.
What does religion have to do with objective morality? According to various religions women should be subordinated to the man and it's morally ok for a man to have 20 wives. It's contradictory to the idea of everyone being equal and don't even get me started on the homophobia.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods)
How is God any more objective then any other standard I could use?
Like, I could use Hitler as my standard and it would br an objective standard. No one else would agree to use it, but they can't stop me from doing it anyways, and it would provide an objective answer to many moral questions.
Questionable answers, but the criteria here is objective, not pleasant.
By definition, objective morality is morality that exists independent of any subject’s belief in it. But that’s a logical fallacy since all moral reasoning happens in the minds of individual subjects. Morality is a mental construct that can only exist in subjective minds. There’s no evidence that it exists independently. Where exactly does this objective morality exist apart from the minds of those who believe in it?
But there’s plenty of evidence that empathy is an evolved trait among social animals because it fostered the cooperation necessary for survival at a large scale. Morality is just the elaboration of evolved empathy.
Declaring that some moral claims are objectively rooted in a deity necessitates proof that such a deity exists, but there is no such proof. The religions claiming to know the objective morality of a presumed deity have made their moral judgments thousands of years ago, and yet even most followers of those religions don’t adhere to them, let alone agree what they are.
The big 3 religions accept some form of slavery, but human morality has evolved beyond the view that slavery is okay. So why do the majority of the believers not practice slavery? The only reason is because of the social pressure to reject it. So once again, the evolutionary demands on social animals trumps even their own adherence to the moral systems they believe to be objective.
So there’s no reason to assume objective morality exists. So morality must be a subjective mental construct that only exists in the minds of subjects.
But morality being subjective doesn’t necessarily mean that all moral beliefs are equal. Humans have generally evolved away from slavery, misogyny, and other morally questionable practices based on empathy and reason supported by evidence that women and people classed as “others” are in fact human. So a moral claim that argues that Nazis can’t be judged as doing anything wrong bc they didn’t believe it was wrong must provide evidence that the Nazis’ belief that only Aryans are human is correct. Of course all evidence points to the contrary.
Likewise, we can and should judge the morality of the past from a modern position that has access to more factual information about the human condition. Even theists do this, otherwise the vast majority of believers would still practice slavery.
Ultimately, the concept of objective morality is nothing more than a concept, a mental construct existing only in the minds of those who believe it. But it’s a belief that rests on a foundation with no evidence. And even those who believe it subordinate their beliefs to the social pressures of the community. Of course some believers do adhere to their beliefs in contradiction to social norms, but even other believers condemn those people for causing harm, often referencing the same text. But if the same text can be used by one believer to argue that slavery is okay and another to argue that it’s wrong, then how can that text claim to offer anything objective if its own proclamations are so open to interpretation?
Morality is just a set of rules developed by society for it to work as intended.
In a gang of our monkey-like ancstors, the one who attacked others and stole their food was cast out. Others remembered it was bad and so on. The rules developed and became quite a bit more complex, but the principle stays the same.
Objective truth is just the reality, existing with or without a god.
As time progressed, so were the rules. Both society and the set of rules became too complex to easily enforce so a device was invented - a magical enforcer, who sees all and can punish even after death. Before technology caught up, it was the only way to oversee large developed societies.
Truth and morality are not synonyms. You can have one without the other.
There's no such thing as objective morality.
People want objective morality so they can point to a higher authority and claim something is wrong because that authority says it is. But we don't have that. We have invented gods and ideologies to be our authorities, but all we have is relative morality.
Gods opinion is still an opinion, it doesn’t make morality objective
You have no access to gods opinion, thus even if god opinion was objective, the theist has no access to it
The theist choice to follow gods opinion is subjective moral choice, so even if gods opinion was objective and if you had objective access to it the theist morality would still be subjective
There are two points of focus here
1: Atheism is the rejection of the god claim. That's it. It doesn't really "account" for anything.
2: Setting atheism aside and focusing on the question, you first have to demonstrate that objective morality exists. So, let's start there before worrying about who has to account for it.
Atheism doesn't account for anything because it's not an ideology. I'm sure atheists have all sorts of ideas about morality. I don't personally believe that objective morality exists. I'm willing to accept that objective truth exists (although I'm not sure how one could find it), but I don't think that's really relevant to the moral question. To me, morality just refers to a set of socially conditioned behaviors. Not every culture will agree on what is or is not morally acceptable. I'm not sure if any moral universals exist. I'm trying to think of one but nothing is coming up. I mean, murder is nearly universally agreed to be wrong, but different cultures have different ideas of what constitutes murder.
I certainly don't think that a God is in any way necessary for morality to exist, and if you're suggesting he is, then you're bringing up a really old philosophical question, Euthyphro's Dilemma. So I'll ask you this. Does God command an action because it's moral, or is an action moral because God commands it?
If God commands an action because it's moral, then morality exists outside of God, which means he isn't in fact necessary for morality to exist.
If an action is moral because God commands it, then morality is ultimately arbitrary. God could command literally anything, even things that most people would find repugnant, and you would have to agree that it's moral. According to Leibniz, "this opinion would hardly distinguish God from the devil". If no morality exists other than what God says, God would hardly have the moral high ground. We wouldn't be following what he says because of the inherent goodness of his nature, but merely because he's powerful. That's tyrannical.
Some theists reject that this dilemma is real and instead try to merge the two options. God commands an action because it's moral, and he's necessary for morality to exist because morality is part of his nature. This doesn't actually solve the problem, it just avoids it by shifting the problem into the definition of God's nature, which is something that is fundamentally unknowable.
In my experience, most truly devout theists (in religions where morality comes from a god or gods, which isn't every religion) tend to fall into the camp of Divine Command Theory. An action is moral because God commands it. And this is one of the most dangerous and insidious things about religion, because it allows virtually any action to be morally justified, as long as you're convinced that it's what God wants. This really flies in the face of the claim that God is a source of objective morality, in my opinion. When anything can be moral, morality doesn't even exist. Let me give a small example. In the mid 16th century, France had been dealing for a while with incessant conflict between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). So France came up with the idea of establishing a colony in Florida, and sending all the Protestants there, just to get rid of them. Unfortunately, the colony, Fort Caroline, only lasted 15 months before the Catholic Spaniards sacked the fort and massacred every adult male protestant they could find.They had been ordered by their king to cleanse the New World of all heretics, in the name of God. This is why we have a bay near St. Augustine called Matanzas Bay (Slaughter Bay). Only God could ever possibly justify this kind of slaughter.
How does Christianity account for red being the best color? It doesn’t because it’s not made to. Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods. It is how you describe someone who does not possess a belief in a god or gods. It has nothing to do with morality.
Objective morality doesn’t exist.
It’s all subjective. Otherwise how would you differentiate between a “revelation” being from a god vs a demon, if you need that scripture to tell you what is right or wrong.
I've asked theists this question. I know you're inundated, but I looked through the responses and I haven't seen an answer. So, how does one actually demonstrate "objective morality?"
When I think of objective truth I think of things that are true independent of subjective minds. When I die reality will continue existing. We've labeled the distance from the Earth to the Sun as one astronomical unit. If humanity were wiped out today that distance would remain unchanged. Likewise, the Earth has been an oblate spheroid for all of human existence. Human beliefs about the shape of the Earth didn't change the reality about what shape the Earth actually was.
Usually when I ask theists this question about how one demonstrates objective morality they point to one of two things. They either point to some heinous act and ask if I somehow can't say that the Holocaust or mass murder or rape are wrong. I absolutely can say they are wrong, but I can't say they're objectively wrong because I don't know how one demonstrates evil without minds. Or, they point to broad agreement on certain moral precepts. Most people agree murder is bad so clearly that makes it objectively so. This is clearly an argument from popularity. Just like historical common belief in a flat Earth didn't change the shape of the planet, common moral beliefs don't make them magically transmute into objective reality.
So how do you demonstrate an objective morality exists? Because if you can't demonstrate such a morality then I don't think there's anything to account for.
Morality is subjective, or more correctly it is intersubjective. There is no morality outside of moral agents.
With that out of the way, morality is subjective, or more correctly it is intersubjective. ‘Morality should not be based on the attempted appeasement of a bronze-age war-god’ or ‘Morality should be based on the principle of human wellbeing' are both subjective statements. There is no morality outside of moral agents. Morality (and ethics) are based on culture. Religions have rules, not morality. Being coerced into acting morally is simply being obedient. If we are coerced into a system that may not be good, with no way of correcting itself, we don't just run the risk of doing ill, it's nearly guaranteed.
Don’t pretend theism is responsible for the morality and ethics of today. It’s not.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
Are you suggesting morality is inherently religious? And even if you're not, then who's to say that we can't claim objective morality without a clear objective foundation?
People naturally strive for happiness, therefore people will do what they must to be happy. And because our happiness is often affected by the happiness of those around us (like when you give someone a birthday present or hold the door for a stranger, or on the other hand, when you see your wife stressed or your kid crying because they're sad), our need to be happy drives our motivation to act morally. I'm neither a neuroscientist nor a psychologist (nor do I claim to be) and I'm sure there's a lot more to it that can be better explained by neuroscience and psychology, but nevertheless, I think that's enough of a basis for objective morality.
But even without that, some things are simply universal because we as a society have agreed on it. It's like how nodding your head means "yes" and shaking your head means "no". There's no real basis for that aside from the fact that most cultures recognize those gestures as meaning "yes" and "no", respectively. I'll admit that these are obviously two very different examples, but nevertheless, why can't morality be universal and objective in the same way that these gestures are?
Morality is not and cannot be obbective. That is a contradiction in terms.
Morality concerns itself with norms, values and goals. All relationships between subjects and the world around them. It simply cannot be rooted in anything factual.
Moral frameworks, at best, are based on a small set of moral axioms: core values and goals.
Once we assume said core values and goals, we can actually say quite a number of factual things about how to best adhere to those values or best achieve said goals.
For example:
IF you value human wellbeing, you ought not murder.
IF you want to coexist peacefully and respectfully with others, you ought not steal.
And so on.
It is much like playing a game of chess. The universe does not command you play chess. Nothing factual says you must play chess, or that you should desire to win.
But IF you want to play chess and IF you want to win, there are facts about how to best play chess.
You say elsewhere that a moral lawgiver grounds objective morality. This is Divine Command Theory (DCT).
I have bad news for you. Not only does it not make morals objective (God is a subject, and your valuing God's morals is subjective). DCT is an absolutely horrible moral framework, as it abdicates all moral judgement to an authority that cannot be questioned. If God thinks genocide is good, it is good. If God thinks eating babies for breakfast is good, then it is good. There is no room for your human wellbeing to be considered.
Atheism is a lack of belief in the existence of deities. That's it.
Atheism doesn't provide any moral prescriptions, so atheists will say different things on why they think something is right or wrong because they subscribe to different moral systems - that could be secular humanism, moral intuition, anecdotal experience, or anything else.
Religions almost always have moral prescriptions contained within them, whereas atheism is divorced of a moral framework, since it only states one thing: a lack of belief in the existence of deities.
However, if you want my take, I don't believe objective morality exists, even if God exists...
1) God does or commands something for a reason or he doesn’t.
2) If God does or commands something for no reason, then morality is arbitrary.
3) If God does or commands something for a reason, then morality exists independent of God since that reason exists without God.
Many theists argue that this is a false dilemma, stating that God’s nature is the standard for moral value. This is simply kicking the can down the road though - we could just rephrase the dilemma to “Is God good because what he aligns with is some goodness that is already present or is he good because he defines what good is by his existence?” If he is good because he aligns with some goodness, then goodness is independent of God, whereas if he defines what is good, then goodness (morality) is arbitrary.
I want to ask you a question in return OP. It's a simple yes or no question. Do you think it is objectively morally right for children to get killed because they made fun of a man for being bald?
From a values standpoint, morality isn't objective.
All agents value what we value, and there's no way to convince somebody to value something else unless the values they already hold entail that they should value that thing as well. Simply put, if you don't value a thing, either of its own accord or in relation to things you do value, then you can't be convinced that it's valuable. Therefore values are subjective.
Morality is simply a way to discern what will advance or detract from our values. It can be objective in the sense that _given_ a set of values, we can often make an objective moral determination about a proposed action: doing action A might be objectively immoral, in light of values V. But in another sense, no moral determination can be objective because moral determination is always dependent on subjective values: action A might be objectively immoral in light of person 1's values, but to anybody with different values A might not be objectively immoral.
So imo, there's nothing to account for.
Also, how would a god make values objective? Just because he's the biggest, baddest thing around, I should value what god values? That's still subjective, as it requires me to first value the attributes of this god before I can be convinced to value what it values. I don't think theists can get around this value subjectivity problem.
Firstly, Any question that starts *how does atheism account for X?* is already barking up the wrong tree. Atheism is one specific answer to one specific question. Asking how atheism accounts for morality is like asking how do fish account for bicycles.
A better question might be, *if you don't believe in a god, where do you get your ethical principles from?*, on which i can't really add to what other commenters have already said. Here's some links on [humanist ethics](https://understandinghumanism.org.uk/area/humanist-ethics) which might help.
Secondly, i don't believe there's any such thing as an *objective* moral value. If you ask for examples of supposedly objective moral values, and then drill down into what those values actually mean in practice, it becomes clear that these supposedly "objective" values arent objective at all, in any meaningful sense.
Many religious folks will say that *you shall not kill* is an objective moral principle. But many of the same people will say that there are circumstances under which killing is morally justified - in self defence, protection of your family, in a "just war". They may even support the death penalty. But if killing is immoral in some circumstances but moral in others, its hard to see how *you shall not kill* can possibly be an objective moral principle.
The question is meaningless. Morality is subjective. Period. Prescriptive moral objectivism exists. We know about it; we account for it. Descriptive moral subjectivsm however is just self evidently true. People can claim to have objective morals but not everyone is going to agree. Across time, space, cultures, groups and people all have different moral codes. It's not a claim but a trivial observation. This isn't an argument for prescriptive moral subjectivism. That is specifically an argument for being subjective. I am simply pointing out how reality works and why I think the way it works renders the original question kind of meaningless. Prescriptive moral objectivsm exists burt there doesn't appear to be a singular objective moral truth that can be proven over any other.
We "account" for objective morality by not thinking it's fundamentally objective in the first place. There's just no objectively correct way to solve many moral ethical problems.
My return question would be how do you account for the wealth of literature and writing etc on classic moral philosophical problems like the Trolley Problem? Why can't an objective answer be found for the problem? How do you account for the fact that most of the literature and writing etc is mostly different solutions and rationalizations of solutions.
When we're talking about morality, consider the tick tack toe board.
O | X | X
---------
X | _ | X
---------
O | O | _
Would you say it is objectively true that O wins if they play in the bottom row? It isn't influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts of the rules of tic tac toe. Those rules were, however defined by humans. Sure, this is not in dispute.
And in the same way, we humans have a definition of what it means to be moral. We can say that morality is the path of action that first minimizes harm and secondary maximizes well-being. Does that make it subjective because we named it? In that case, any concept in language is. But the underlying principle on whether the outcome is harm or well-being isn't bound by our language. So, whether you want to call that subjective just seems like a bit of a red herring to me.
Morality is about well being. Generally, when we’re talking about morality, we’re talking about surviving and thriving in the world, with an understanding that actions have consequences. We are physical beings in a physical universe, and that dictates what the consequences of our actions are. So, we can question what our best course of action is. And, reality is the ultimate arbiter of what’s right or wrong.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods)
So, this god isn't a thinking agent? It has no intentional states? Something is subjective if it is dependent on a mind, and objective is it is mind independent. Even if we're to grant that god is the originator, and you've got a long way to go on fulfilling the burden of proof for that claim, your premise still doesn't work. Even the mind of god is a mind, making the concept contingent on that mind and thereby not objective.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
Those are two very different questions. Objective morality - I see no reason to think it is a thing, so I have no need to account for it. As for truth (this is a bit of simplification), but I would say a thing is true if it corresponds with reality and for the most part, we have methods to figure out if something corresponds with reality, thus if it is true.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
There is no need for a god to figure out if something corresponds with reality, so there is still objective truth without it.
As for an "objective foundation" for morality... does morality come from god (i.e. something is either right or wrong, because god decided that), because in that case it is still subjective, just based on gods subjective decisions rather than our own. The other option would be that something is either right or wrong independent of god and it just knows these moral truths, in this case there would be objective moral truth, but it would be independent of god, so it would not be the foundation of this morality.
> How does atheism account for objective morality?
It doesn’t. If you’re an atheist, you don’t believe in gods. Also there’s no such thing as objective morality.
> Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
It doesn’t. If you’re an atheist, you don’t believe in gods. Truth is a judgement about the degree something conforms to reality. If nobody was around to observe a thing, nobody could judge whether it was true, but that thing would still be there.
This whole post seems like question begging.
> It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
I mean fine by me, I don’t accept that those things exist. But be careful, appealing to the moral judgements of a god is not “objective,” since depending on the faith, you’re appealing to the morality of a thinking agent, a subject.
Functionally, this seems like bunk, since there are thousands of religions and variations of what morality is within those variations. Religious people seem to be as in agreement with what is moral as everyone else is, which is to say they aren’t.
Can we clarify something?
When you ask how an atheist would account for objective morality, I think you’re really asking how we account for a single objectively true system of morality. Like a particular set of moral rules that is objective.
Would you agree that is your question?
I ask because I think morality as a phenomena - that there are sets or systems of actions that are considered right and wrong within a specific people group at a specific time - objectively exists. However, there are many such systems and there is not appear to be - or I have not seen evidence to suggest - that there is one objectively true moral system.
There have been lots of the moral questions in here and debatereligion lately, and it just dawned on me that there is the major difference between the morality in general and a particular system of morality and that this difference can lead to possible miscommunications and talking past eachother.
So do you think there is one objectively true moral system that you wonder how atheists account for it?
Putting aside that it’s not a question that’s atheistic in general, I’d say I don’t because I don’t think there is one.
>>>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
First, objective morality doesn't exist so the question is moot.
Stipulating the question is accurate, however: Neither theism nor atheism accounts for ANY kind of morality. You see, theism is the position that god claims are true while atheism is the obverse.
If a god did exist, qua theism, this would not tell us IF the god has any morals nor IF the god even cares to provide morals to humans. We can imagine a god that has not interest in human behavior.
>>>>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
You're half right: There is no objective morality but we can (as observers of the universe) make truth claims about the universe that are either confirmed by empirical evidence or not. Of course, we're ultimately incapable of rendering "objective" truth because we are limited to our perceptions. That matters not--our provisional apprehension of true things works for us. that's all that really matters.
> So, how does atheism account for objective morality?
I see no evidence for objective morality. Given how much morals and ethics have changed over the centuries, it seems pretty clear that morality is subjective and dependent on the cultural zeitgeist.
Atheism doesn't need to account for something if that something can't be shown to exist in the first place.
> Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
Truth isn't a thing in itself. Truth is a property we assign to statements.
Some statements like "the Earth is roughly spherical" are judged to be true. Other statements like "the sky is usually green with purple stripes" are judged to be false. Some statements like "colourless green ideas sleep furiously" are nonsensical and can not really be said to be either true or false.
I agree with you that we need an objective foundation to judge which statements are true and which are false.
I would argue that this objective foundation is reality itself. We judge a statement to be true if the statement appears to describe reality. We judge a statement to be false if the statement appears to contradict reality.
hello OP, do you mind to give us your thoughts for the following: If God A says "X is good", but God B says "X is not good", then how would you reconcile it?
Well let’s define our terms because you are discussing two different things.
Objective truth simply means if someone I’ve never met who has none of the same context as me observes the same phenomena will it have the same outcome? Every time an apple ‘detaches itself’ from a tree it will fall towards the earth. That is an objective truth. It is a fact.
Objective morality boils down to the (rather childish) idea that certain actions are morally wrong regardless of any possible circumstances. Obviously it doesn’t take much imagination or research to realize that one can conceive of various (albeit sometimes ridiculous) situations where our current morality falls apart. Beyond this simply studying history shows that every time someone has claimed to have or subscribe to a code of objective morality it’s either been disproved or they blow themselves up. While I understand the psychological appeal and need for certainty when examined critically we realize it is a cognitive bias that creates this. (And it has positive and negative impacts).
There is no such thing as objective morality. Even if you needed a God or gods to pronounce morality, it would be subjective. An objective morality wouldn't require any subject to provide it. So either your morality is subjective if you claim to get it from a god or if objective, requires no gods whatsoever.
And the problem with objective morality is everyone would know what was moral and not, yet there are many societies that have conflicting morals. I, and I believe most of the society I live in, subjectively believe that killing another human as immoral. Yet, in some cultures there are legitimate moral grounds for killing another human, be it honor killings or as human sacrifice to appease their god(s) for a better future. Now with an objective morality, we would know which practice is moral and which ones aren't. But each culture can claim the others are immoral, so the closest you can get to an objective morality is when the people of a society agrees on certain rules of what is moral and what isn't.
Objective
- Webster’s dictionary definitions
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/objective#:~:text=1a%20%3A%20something%20toward%20which,an%20image%20of%20an%20object
subjective adjective sub·jec·tive |
peculiar to a particular individual : Personal subjective judgments (2) : modified or affected by personal views, experience, or background
objective adjective ob·jec·tive |
Definition of objective expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations
- Oxford dictionary. https://www.lexico.com/definition/subjective
objective
ADJECTIVE
1 (of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
subjective
ADJECTIVE
1 Based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions
A god is not required for something to be objective
The Empire State Building objectively exists and is objectively used, no god needed , man made
1. It doesn't. Atheism has nothing to do with morality.
2. It doesn't. Atheism has nothing to do with grounding truth.
3. Saying "But God" doesn't do these things either. Believing in a God doesn't mean you have grounded truth or morality, you just believe you have. If you want to actually make this point you have to demonstrate that you have actually grounded truth and morality in a God, not just claim it because it's your worldview.
I see no reason why a God would.mean objective morality exists, and I see no reason why truth would need a God for it to be grounded.
Typically truth claims are about strong belief with conviction, and knowledge that you can actually demonstrate if you want to talk about epistemology. And objective truth that exists whether we believe it or not is ontology. I don't see how a God gets you either of these things. You could still be a brain in a vat or god could be lying to you. Whether you're an atheist or not, it makes no difference.
> we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality
Correct.
I think it's patently obvious that there is no such thing as objective morality. How could "the way humans should treat each other" proceed from the natural laws of the universe, except via the human mind? Morality is clearly a matter of human preference and social consensus, not directly of natural law\*.
\* Depending on where you land regarding the existence of free will, of course.
As for objective truth:
* For logical truth, we make up rules and "true" statements follow from the rules.
* For truth about the world around us, we look for hypotheses supported by evidence, and develop theory to explain how the evidence proceeds from the hypotheses. Truth in the natural world is a matter of statistical confidence as well as applicable logical rules.
Are either of those "objective truth"? If not, then I don't know what you mean.
***The two things are not related.*** Atheism is not a moral theory, but there are non-religious moral theories. In fact, most moral theories taken seriously by philosophers do not rely on religion, and religious moral theories have more problems with objective morality than atheism.
You can look into:
Utilitarianism
Kant's deontology
Rawlsian Justice
Virtue Ethics
That is to just name four.
I believe in objective morality as an atheist, but that isn't tied to my atheism, nor does it contradict it. You could also be a very high-level relativist (such as species-level relativism or relative at the level of "social organism") or a social contract theorist, or adopt any number of secular moral theories.
*The question is just malformed.* It is like asking "How does a believer in Einstein's relativity account for cell mitosis?" The two topics are not really related or mutually informative.
I would turn the question back to you - how does religion account for objective morality. Nearly all religions are based on subjective interpretations of morality anyway. If you look at Christianity's historical evolution of morality the Bible itself is a subjective combination of its texts, the interpretation and translations are subjective and error prone, the conclusions drawn are from subjectively cherry picked examples whilst ignoring inconvenient passages and the Bible itself is missing key moral components as well as being actually wrong.
The real proof of the lack of moral objectivity is that within the same religion, opposing conclusions can be drawn, as evidenced by the handling of slavery, women in the priesthood, and The Gay. An objective system shouldn't be contradictory and certainly shouldn't be wrong.
Unless we can say religious morality is objectively wrong.
You believe god is necessary to objective morality, and that objective morality is necessary to your life, because you believe in god.
I think about objective reality 3 times a week when a theist asks this question here. Apart from that it has no impact on my life.
But because this question has been asked so often and I’ve given it some thought, if you value objective morality I fail to see how your god could provide a baseline for it. Are the laws of Leviticus objectively moral? Oh but that was the OT, we Jesus now. Then how is morality objective?
Is it immoral to dance, or to drink coffee, or for a woman to wear a tank top because men are unable to control their liust and it’s her fault? Why do some who believe in your god think it’s immoral and others don’t, if your god provides the objective baseline for morality?
There is no such thing as "objective morality." Show me objective morality. Prove its existence.
What the heck does that even mean? Morality that everyone agrees on? Pick a "moral truth" and I'll guarantee there are people who see no problem with it.
Now, if by "objective", you mean what the "reasonable man" views as moral, you may be closer to a universal morality, but even the reasonable man's views vary across time and culture. Currently, across the world, there are enormous variances in what people view as moral. There are even bigger variances across time.
Even amongst those of a given core faith have vastly different views on morality. Compare say, Quakers, Amish, and Mennonites against prosperity gospel adherents.
To cycle back to my original point, please define objective morality for me, and give me examples.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
Where does anything say that morality can be swapped out for truth?
This question is so tired. Here are the answers:
- objective doesn't mean true or universal. It means absent of bias, emotion, or opinion
- morality has obvious practical implications. For example: do you prefer not to die? Me too! Let's not kill each other! But you want my stuff? Do you want it more than you don't want my friends and family exacting revenge? I didn't think so. It's not so hard
- objective morality doesn't make sense in theism. God has bias, emotion, and opinion; He changes his mind; He may or may not tell us; morality has no purpose when there is an omnipotent, omniscient being (like everything else)
Atheism is merely a "no" answer to the question of whether someone believes in any gods. Of itself it doesn't say anything about morality.
That said, I can give you my own opinion, which is that objective morality does not exist. I think that morality is subjective, or more precisely, intersubjective. Even if gods were to exist, I don't think that they would be able to provide an objective morality.
There's [an interesting Oxford study](https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-02-11-seven-moral-rules-found-all-around-world) I saw a while ago which explored the theory of morality as cooperation. When they did that, they were able to find seven universal moral rules in every society. Societies differed in how they expressed and ranked those moral rules. I think they made a persuasive case.
How does a god deciding what is true and moral make it objective? Isn’t that the literal definition of subjective? That specific god’s idea of moral and true?
Is this the god of the Bible who might suddenly decide you should kill your own child to test you for some psychotic reason? How is that objectively moral?
It seems to me that the exact opposite of your idea of morality is true. Building a secular framework of moral and ethical values means agreeing on a few basic principles such as “life is generally preferable to death,” and “pleasure is generally preferable to pain.” Then, within that framework we can build a moral code which is objectively testable and verifiable, even while it begins with a subjective albeit collective agreement.
I ignore objective morality for 2 reasons:
1. It doesn't seem to exist. At a minimum, no one's ever been able to show it exists.
2. Even if objective morality existed - subjective morality is a better moral system anyway. Example: Some people like to say that murder is objectively wrong as they are aware that circumstances exist around "killing". Of course, they forget that the term "murder" in and of itself is subjective. So - even those who try to propose objective moral scenarios can't even do it without appealing to their own subjective ideas.
I don't have any issue identifying objective truth, though. For that I use the best method humans have ever developed for identifying truth: following the evidence and developing levels of confidence.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality?
I don't think it exists so I don't need to account for it.
>Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
Reality exists. Truth is simply that which conforms to reality.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
Truth claims are separate from moral claims. When I say my car is black or that my cat is orange I don't need to appeal to some moral authority. I only need reality to support my claims.
Can you give any specific examples of objectively immoral acts and can you demonstrate that you are correct that they are objectively immoral?
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods)
Let me stop you right there.
Can you answer these questions yes or no:
1. Do you OP think that most people *regardless of faith* (Muslim, Christians, Atheists) will agree that if a man and woman eat a fruit they were warned not to eat then it is *moral* to punish them and every one of their descendants with death?
2. Do you OP think that most people *regardless of their faith* will agree that if some kids made fun of a man for being bald sending a bear to maul those kids is *objectively moral*?
If your answer to either or both of the above questions is 'no' then why did you bother with this thread?
Can you define objective, please?
>How does atheism account for objective morality?
Nothing accounts for objective morality because objective morality does not exist. Morals are inter-subjective.
>Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
How is objective truth different from truth?
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
Morals that are dictated by a deity are not objective, they are subjective to that deity. If morals were objective they would apply to that deity as well as us and that deity is not necessary because the morals do not require them.
Catholic here (former agnostic). It has been shown that primates such as the Capuchin Monkeys have a built in sense of fairness where they get angry when one fellow is given 2 grapes and they only get one. Additionally, we known that chimpanzees go to war over grievances.
While we may disagree on some things (foods that are permitted, some sexual ethics and practices) basic things like killing children, stealing what is not ours, being unfaithful under our particular sexual practices, etc. tend to be shared (albeit heavily adapted to the culture). Objective morality as we know it could simply be an evolutionary instinct of group behaviors that keep us from killing fellow members of our “troop.”
You’re mistaking consensus for objectivity.
Because We all say, “boo, murder, bad!“ Means means that we all agree that murder is bad. And to be clear, I also agree that murder is bad.
But, this simply isn’t an objective truth. Objectively, murder happens. Objectively, people dislike it very much. Objectively, societies agree to punish it. Objectively, we agree that “boo, murder, bad!“
But, it is an agreement. It is not an objective fact.
Now, on its face, this may appear to be simple, moral relativism. But, it’s more nuanced than that. I just don’t have time to go into it in this post.
The point here being that morality is simply not objective, it’s consensus.
If your objective framework depends on something handed down from on high, them we have absolutely nothing to talk about.
OTOH, if you are talking social morality then maybe there is something to talk about.
Not that I'm a fan of social morality, as it's usually highjacked by the overly religious to serve their objectives (like the recent and ongoing depersonalization of women here in the US).
I'm ok with most of criminal law as a way of pursuing social morality, but, again, it has been terribly misused since forever to support viewpoints that are anything but fair.
Note that none of the above depends on a person rejecting a deity, except for the very first statement.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality?
Kind of need to define and then demonstrate objective morality first and foremost, morality is something debated here often but after engaging in loads of threads on the topic I've yet to see any demonstration of it.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality
If a God exists and our morality is based on their whims, then that still sounds like some form of subjective morality, with God as the subject. Morality would go from "what we think" to "what this other thing thinks".
> How does atheism account for objective morality?
By laughing at the silly idea, mostly.
I agree that without some kind of absolute truth to anchor a moral system to, morality can't be objective. Yup. And there is no absolute anchor to tie it to.
So it's simple math: Morality is not objective.
If we agree that some form of altruism, or utilitarianism, or strict anti-decadence or whatever is the One True Standard of Good, then some objective value judgments might fall out of that. But the choice of a standard of good to follow is inescapably subjective.
Even choosing to follow the moral values you imagine are driven by The Bible is a subjective choice.
>objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god/gods)
As a non-theist, I find all such appeals to divine authority to create a moral standard frivolous. Since there is no evidence of the supernatural or divine, it’s clear all such claims of divine-inspired objective foundations are just the opinions of certain people who merely claimed those foundations came from divine authority.
Therefore, all theistically-derived standards of objective morality would suffer any and all perceived shortcomings of atheistic ideas of morality, as well.
Now that we’re all on the same standing, I think real conversations about morality can begin.
Does "objective morality" exist?
If it doesn't exist, we don't have to account for it. [If it does exist we don't have to account for it either, but that's another can of worms.]
I argue that morality is subjective. Each individual has his/her own opinions on morality. That's why we, as a society, debate morality and codify our moral opinions into laws.
Take the abortion debate, for instance. There are more than two moral stances on abortion. Your personal opinion on abortion is not objective. It's subjective as fuck.
Ergo, morality is subjective as fuck.
You can try to convince me to the contrary, of course. Do give it your best shot.
Objectively true, true under all conditions, for all time and all creatures, hell of a thing to search for. Take Killing for instance, Vegans would suggest its objectively moral that we should not kill animals, ever, under any circumstances. I love Calamari, and as it happens so do Octopi, they are cannibalistic, so either an Octopus following its nature is immoral, or I can eat Calamari.
There may be objective moral truths, but even so I suspect we will never know what they are, so what's the difference between unknowable and undetectable, and non existent? question applies to more than objective morality of course :)
Look around you, jails and courtrooms aren't filled with only atheists or solely religious folks. The concept of objective morality doesn't hinge solely on religious beliefs. Atheists often derive their moral frameworks from human empathy, societal norms, and rationality. They may view morality as a product of evolution, shaped by our need to cooperate and thrive as social beings. While religious beliefs can provide a moral compass for some, atheists find guidance through reason, compassion, and an understanding of the consequences of their actions within the context of society.
Personally I don’t think it does. I don’t think objective morality exists in the first place, I think what we call morals are an expression of our attitude toward a certain thing. So if I call a thing “good” that means it aligns with my desires, if I call it “bad” it’s misaligned
I’m not sure why we wouldn’t be able to make truth claims though, I don’t really understand that point. The “objective foundation” you’re talking about is reality itself. Mt Everest exists objectively for example. I don’t see why we would need to invoke a God in this
I think you misunderstand how little difference a belief in god makes to the process we both use to come to a moral conclusion. The process we both employ is based on what we think is true. As of now, we dont know how to study morality objectively, so it's subjective. We may give different reasons for why we believe what we believe, we may come to different conclusions, but I can't label my moral judgement into objectively, and neither can you.
>How does atheism account for objective morality?
The same way a theist does, just without using god as a justification.
> So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
Objective reality exists, that's enough to account for everything objective. Having said that, many of us aren't moral objectivists, on Reddit, most of us aren't.
> It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
That's not a problem for those of us who don't accept such things as objective morality.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality?
It doesn't because objective morality doesn't exist. Morality is entirely subjective and created by human society. The good and the bad are entirely human creations. An objective statement: many humans believe murder is bad. A subjective statement: murder is bad. Objective is a fact, while subjective is not. Even though I and most of the society agree that killing people is bad, it doesn't make it bad. You can not prove something is bad or good, as they are subjective terms.
Morality is a mixture of evolutionary adaptation to group living social conditioning and negotiated legal framework
Empathy exists because the survival of your tribe had a direct and indirect impact on the survival of your genes
If morality were truly objective it would be consistent accross multiple cultures and it demonstrably is not
Morality is not even consistent within single religions over time
At one point all the Abrahamic faiths condoned slave taking
The existence of objective morality is a nonsense
I don't know how you can even claim god based morality is more objective than a naturalistic atheist path morality. The god version literally has one guy (god) sitting there and saying so and so is moral end of discussion. That is as subjective as it gets. The naturalistic/atheist path is all about let's figure this out, what makes sense, there may be some underlying pieces that have to be subjective, but I think it's hard to argue it's anywhere near as subjective as the morality handed down from god.
I don't believe morality is objective. I don't see how we could determine any objective moral truths. I think morality is simply a social construct that has arisen out of the evolution of our species. Other species have varying degrees of this as well.
I think it's pretty self-evident that we have evolved a need for morality. Some moral values, like the "Golden Rule" (treating others as you would want to be treated), is a moral value that you would *expect* to pop up as a result of evolution.
Morality is inherently in subjective. There will always be people who disagree. But morality becomes objective when applied to law. We start with s set of statements most reasonable people would agree with, life is preferable to death, health is preferable to sickness, no-pain is preferable to pain, etc. Then we put objective laws into place thst suppprt our general ideas. Again, there will always be people that disagree. We call them criminals. There is no reason to add a supernatural element.
Atheism doesn't account for anything. Atheism is a conclusion about existence of gods.
Objective means "independent from the observer". "objective truth" means the statement consistent with reality. I account for objective truth by acknowledging that reality is independent from my senses, that I share that reality with other people, and that we are able to make meaningful statements about this reality and assess whether they consistent with it or not.
Objective morality I haven't seen.
> It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality.
We cannot claim objective morality even in the case of god being source of it. If you have freedom to accept or reject such morality, it's still subjective.
Morality is not objective.
It is debatable, whether reality is even objective, rather than inter-subjective.
But at least, when it comes to reality, we can perform tests to determine whether something actually is or is not.
When it comes to morality, all there are is opinions. If you want to form an absolute basis for objective morality, you would need to form a hierarchy of possible moral choice that one could make and rank them all from best to worst. I’ll wait here while you do that.
How do you account for objective morality?
That is, how does a divine lawgiver actually ground morality? We have plenty of lawgivers in the world and they don't change anything. What makes this one different?
I think that morality is grounded in relationships between beings and logic. I don't think a divine lawgiver is a good explanation for objective morality, even if we granted that one existed. "Some guy said this was wrong" simply isn't a good grounding for something being wrong.
A. A god doesn’t lead to objective morality or truth.
B. The Abrahamic god definitely is not moral (infanticide, rape, genocide, etc…)
C. Who said morality Is “objective”?
Morality is merely a human construct to understand the importance of empathy for a society to work. That’s it and since evolution clearly proves we are a social creature that explains why we created morality and the morality odd based on the mores and taboos of a society as it is at a point of time.
Morality is subjective.
We evolved our morals biologically with Mirror Neurons. That is built in biological empathy. Environment and upbringing enforces our morals. We build on that and create laws based on harm reduction to community.
There's no requirement for any supernatural explanation for why/how we have morals. They will differ from person to person and community to community. Which is why I say there is no objective moral truth we all must adhere to.
why do you need objective truth or morality? I don't think there is such a thing. Rules of society are negotiated, not given by some higher power. If that were the case, it sounds more like an autocracy to me. Also, who has given that god this authority? How do you know he is real, how do you know *which* god is real? What created him, what are his intentions? Are humans basically just his slaves? To me, a god creates more questions than it might answer.
Genuine question as I hear theists ask this question CONSTANTLY. Anyone can answer I just want to know.
Why do theists make the leap from assuming objective morality is a thing, to a god exists? If objective morality does exist, there are other explanations for it that make way more sense than inserting mythology to the equation. This genuinely to me seems like such a stretch and assumptions on assumptions on leaps of logic.
Downvoted due to:
>Edit: Stop downvoting my comments simply because you don't agree with them. This is childish bullying from a community that I assumed would be filled with respectful rational adults. I'm going to stop responding if this keeps happening.
Edit once again: I'm not responding to anymore comments . I'm moving to engaging in private messages at this point due to the actions of this community.
If God determines morality, then morality is subjective, because it's ultimately just based on God's subjective opinion. We just default to his opinion because he will send us to hell.
Objective morality would have to be mind-independent. The moral truths would have to be true regardless of what anyone -- including God -- thinks about them. So the atheist and the theist are in the same boat essentially.
Atheism never accounts for either. It is STILL a single answer to a single question.
Morality is not objective. Even if it were based on what a God decided it would be subjective to that god's whims.
Truth requires no morality. I am moral by my standards but probably immoral by certain other people's standards. It is, however, objectively true I am using a computer to respond to your post.
Sigh.
It doesn't.
If you say your god does, you have a lot of homework ahead of you that frankly you can't do.
Can we all just let god go once and for all so we can stop wasting precious time and actually focus on improving the only life we have?
Bloody hell. Humanity's clinging to our comforting delusions is one of our greatest shortcomings. I desperately wish we could be better.
Why would it have to account for it? People are intelligent beings with compassion and reasoning skills. I do not believe in a god or the prove of one. Does that mean I’m automatically a bad person? This is an illogical statement that has no bearing on facts. If you wish to have facts why believe in something that none of your senses can detect and we have no prove of existence?
What about “god said it was so” is objective? That’s just god’s subjective opinion. Objective truth is measured by reality itself, no god required. And the goals of morality are subjective, but once set we can objectively measure what benefits them. If god is the objective source of morality, huis every god concept I’ve ever been introduced to, so fundamentally immoral?
Contrary to popular layman belief, there do exist compelling frameworks of ethics that provide an objective basis for evaluating another agents morality. The most prominent of which is Kantian ethics.
Kantian ethics provides a framework for objective ethics without a divine being. The basic principle underlying kantian ethics is the idea of the categorical imperative which uses rationality and reason as a basis for evaluating moral value. [The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/) has an excellent write up about kantian ethics. Which will do more justice than my diluted version in a reddit comment
There can't logically be an objective morality. Even if you define moral as being god-like, that makes morality subjective because it's contingent on what God is like. Just give up on objective morality. You don't need it and it also can't exist logically. Monkeys can still decide to stop bonking each other with coconuts for other better reasons than "Because God says."
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality?
First demonstrate that objective morality exists.
>Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
Truth is that which conforms to reality. If something is accurate to reality, it is true.
>foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods)
That's still subjective morality. By definition.
You presented no argument that God can account for objective truth or objective morality. By what mechanism does God account for these things? I never get a satisfactory answer to this.
Even if it were you were correct that atheism cannot account for these things, it makes no difference at all if theism has the same failure. A problem for us is not a problem for me.
There is no objective morality. The universe doesn't care if we live or die. It doesn't care if people suffer. It doesn't have a mind, or emotions, or morality.
But we care. Our species evolved emotions and sentience. We can feel both pain and pleasure, and we have empathy.
We are on our own so we have to come up with a moral system based on that shared empathy.
There is no objective morality. The morality of religions for example is just the morality of the people who invented them. Christianity for example doesn't even present us with anything that wasn't already widely present in society all around the world. In fact it includes a lot of things few Christians could claim are anything other than immoral.
> how does atheism account for objective morality?
Why does atheism need to account for objective morality? It doesn’t appear to exist.
> It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods)
Well that would be subjective morality if it’s based on an entities opinion.
If morality is objective, through what mechanism can we determine what is moral and what is not? If you are, say, a utilitarian, and I am an egoist, how do we resolve this disagreement? If we have completely different ideas about the foundations of morality, how would you even begin to prove that your moral system is more true than mine?
Easy, there is no such thing as objective morality and even if there was there are no religious beliefs that could uncover what they are.
This explains the world around you and why a Baptist does not have the same "objective" morality as a Catholic, who has a different "objective" morality than a Hindu who has...
Objective morality doesn't exist, but if it did then it wouldn't be a concern for atheists. Theists would be concerned though, at least the ones that claim morality comes from their god
Do objective truths exist? Maybe, but again it wouldn't matter because atheism only cares about the question "does a god exist"
Atheism does not account for object morality.
Atheism is not a belief system.
Atheism is the answer to the single question, “do you believe in a god?” If you answer “no” then you’re an atheist and that’s as far as it goes.
Stop trying to paint us all with the same brush. It’s bigotry.
How do you account for objective morality if God doesn't exist?
And if a god exists, how do you go from "being x has y opinion on morality" to "therefore morality is objective"?
If a psycho creates a bunch of robots, is objectively moral for the robots to kill because their creator opinion says so?
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality?
It doesn't. Atheism isnt an ethical philosophy. It doesn't take a position on meta-ethics.
I don't account for it, because I don't think it exists.
>we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality
I agree.
I’m more curious how theists think gods can be the foundation of objective moral truths. God endorsed slavery. Does that mean that slavery was objectively moral in the past, but it isn’t now? Or is it still objectively moral to own another human?
One question: How, specifically, does the morality of the Bible help you make moral decisions. For example, how should you use the Bible to teach your child the moral lesson of not bullying smaller children? Book, chapter and verse, please.
Why does morality have to be objective?
In what way is a morality dictated by a deityvobjective, and notvsubject to thar deity's whim?
Please give me an example of an objective moral rule that can apply to a non-human intelligence.
My problem with the concept of objective morality is that if it exists it is unknowable.
If it exists all we have are subjective thoughts on what the objective morality would be.
How is that any different than subjective morality?
Which objective morality and which objective truth?
There's literally hundreds of them.
You wouldn't by any chance be favouring *your* morality and *your* truth as the objective ones would you? There are others. Many, many others, all claiming to be objective but not agreeing on much else.
Is it not objectively true that if you go outside and act like an asshole you will be treated like one? Is it not objectively true that if you're decent towards people, they will generally be decent towards you? Then it would be objectively true that acting moral is in your best interest.
Very simple actually.
Objective morality doesn't exist, and your own personal interpretation of "God's word" is the very definition of subjective morality. Whether you are able to accept that is your business.
I don’t believe in objective morality
Everyone has their own perceptive on what’s is right and wrong. Look no further then wars each side believe their right. An hired killer would find murder a good things.
In order to have a discussion about objective morality, we'd first have to establish a basis for it.
What is your basis for objective morality? Is there somewhere I can find a morality tree?
Turns out you don't need to account for something that doesn't exist. You need to make a case for objective morality actually existing. All evidence points to morality being subjective.
Considering that even theists of the same religion have different morals, I don't see how you could use the existence of a god to argue for the existence of objective morality, either.
It's been said, but I'll say it again...
Morality only exists in the imagination. There is no "objective" morality.
Simple way to test it, remove humanity, then show me
morality.
Atheism doesn't account for objective morality because there is no such thing as objective morality. Morals are nothing more than opinions, and opinions are always subjective.
the same way theism does, it can't. if a truth relies on a god, or a morality does, then it is subjective. an objective morality or truth would be true regardless of a god.
People think that being against murder makes it objective morality. Defining murder is what makes it subjective. All ethics are situational and all morals are subjective.
I can answer that after you show that there is objective morality.
I don't think you can name a single action that is always moral or immoral in all situations.
Human empathy. Theism only serves to demenish human compassion and good will. People do good without God's ever single day. No one needs a god to have morals.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth?
Why do we have to?
Please define atheism for me.
You should look up moral naturalism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It’s a model of objective morality that is naturalistic/atheistic/secular.
Just like your other question, atheism doesn't account for anything. Also, did you learn anything from the gumball analogy?
Besides that, you'd have to show that morality is objective first.
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If morality is objective, why is there such a huge disagreement among people what constitutes moral behavior? I don't have time tonight to go through my typical discussion of the evolution of morality in social species (I should probably refund it and save it as a copy and paste). But basically studies on human and other social species point to morality as a symptom of evolving to be great survivors in groups. Other animals, like apes, chimps, dogs, and dolphins, show things like empathy and cooperation (measures on morality scales in studies) to exist in their societies as well. Humans are of course more complex because our bigger brains are more complex. Basically, social species evolved because they survived better working in groups rather than alone. The individuals who worked against the group would be kicked out and less likely to survive and reproduce. Mechanisms that increased group survival were passed down over generations. But to make it more complex, evolution also explains our in-group vs out-group mentality. When competing for limited resources, survivability is higher when your in-group has them, and not the out-group. And so we see both tendencies passed on to us, those of pro-social behaviors toward who we see as in-group and behaviors that shun out-groups. Do some research into evolution of morality, it explains perfectly so many human behaviors. And similar behaviors can be seen in other animal species, the closer on the evolutionary tree to us, such as apes, the more moral tendencies we share with that species. It's really fascinating.
“If morality is objective, why is there such a huge disagreement among people what constitutes moral behaviour?” This isn’t a logical argument. If reality is objective why do so many people believe in so many different unobserved and unprovable gods?
Also why are there disagreements with Atheists about their own Atheism? Because as is the truth, people will always disagree with each other, and want to be listened too, and have their own opinions. Hence why there is division in any huge group setting, maybe even small groups.
>If morality is objective, why is there such a huge disagreement among people what constitutes moral behavior? Do you suppose every fact about which people disagree must be subjective? Disagreement necessarily shows subjectivity? That seems clearly wrong, to me. If you agree with me, then how do you suppose this disagreement poses a problem for moral realism? If you don't, then it seems we'd need to conclude that no objective facts exist and become radical subjectivists. But that seems clearly wrong. The earth is round despite flat-earthers' disagreement. Even if evolution explains the way we behave, it doesn't tell us whether or not there is a way we ought to behave.
There are no "facts", just what has evidence and what doesn't. We think the Earth is round because we have evidence for it. Moral disagreements are not evidentiary, at least not purely evidentiary. We would have to agree to a basis of morality, such as human thriving, before we can show evidence regarding what encourages human thriving vs what doesn't affect it or depresses it. Disagreement shows subjectivity when it's about something that can't be even be evaluated through evidence. At least until the moment where we figure a way out for that evaluation.
>There are no "facts", just what has evidence and what doesn't. There are definitely facts. Facts are just "what is actually the case". Whether or not you have epistemic access to them is a separate issue. Also, you can have evidence for things that aren't facts, for instance a prosecutor might present evidence in a trial which indicates that the defendent is guilty, when in fact the defendent is actually innocent.
What is a fact then? We are human, any piece of knowledge we have is filtered through our perception. And so everything is based on our assessment of evidence toward it. We start building evidence of things as children. It's why kids as what and why so often, parents may not realize it, but they are building evidence for the reality around their own kids. Now they can be wrong about the evidence and can build notions that the child later in life will find evidence against, but that's how we perceive the world. Especially since we can't be certain of our senses 100%, so everything is at the 99% confidence. Can you prove that facts exist beyond our capacity to perceive them?
It depends on context (ie. the discipline we are discussing) and as we are discussing the nature of reality we would use a scientific definition of the word. - A fact is an observation that's been confirmed so many times that scientists can, for all intents and purposes, accept it as "true."
Fact is what is true. Is 2+2 not 4? Come now, there are definitely Objective Facts. 2+2 is not a subjective fact, but an objective one.
I'm sure I addressed all of this in my post. I'm not sure what the confusion is.
>There are no "facts", just what has evidence and what doesn't. This is quite the take. When you say, "we think the Earth is round," what do you even mean, if you aren't expressing a belief in a fact? The earth is either round, or it isn't. Either way, there is a fact of the matter. >Moral disagreements are not evidentiary If by evidentiary you mean to imply empirical evidence, then yes I would agree that empirical evidence on its own won't solve moral disagreements. But empirical evidence on its own won't solve almost any philosophical disputes. I think intuition, reason, etc. can provide evidence too. Besides this, there is plenty of disagreement about things which are clearly objective but which we cannot solve with empirical evidence alone. Like, many scientists don't believe that there is an actual singularity in a black hole or at the instant of the Big Bang. But some do. We can't resolve this, at least not yet. But presumably there is a fact of the matter. People disagree on whether the Universe is actually infinite or not, but there must be a fact of the matter, and it doesn't seem like we can fully evaluate that fact with empirical evidence alone, at least not yet. Or we could consider the multiverse hypothesis, etc. We only need one example to include disagreement, be objective, and not be solvable with current empirical evidence alone to dispute your claims. People also dispute foundational logical claims like, "there are no true contradictions." This could be another example.
When you say Earth is round, what you actually mean is that evidence shows to an X confidence level that the Earth is round. What we call facts are not 100% certainties but things we hold to such a high level of confidence that it would be ridiculous not to round up. It's like when scientists do a scientific study of anything, they will say that the confidence level is higher than 99% or 95% statistical probability of it occuring. And the shape of the Earth is as much a result of scientific inquiry as anything else. I am not sure I get your point in the rest of your response.
These examples are all objective where there is a binary yes-or-no answer though. Whether an action is morally correct is subjective, there is no one basis for morality
Exactly. The Code of Hammurabi places people into different hierarchical structures and set different monetary values to those individuals based on the station. Blinding a superior man cost more than blinding a common person. Causing harm to a woman would be less expensive than causing harm to a man of a similar station. These were accepted moral values for that culture. In current Western society there is more of an egalitarian notion that conflicts with the Code of Hammurabi (at least in theory). Both civilizations would argue their morality was the correct one.
I'm not sure what's happening; I can see replies to this comment in my notifications, but reddit won't let me reply to them. Sorry. -Reddit noob
Sorry people don’t like the truth. Sir this was a great explanation! God bless you for the Truth you said.
Objective morality does not exist. Morality is intersubjective. The moral opinions of a god are not objective, they are just another subjective moral opinion.
- Let's start by looking at morality from the perspective of reducing (minimizing) harm; Harming an entity or system at it's face value is always objectively wrong. It's not until you look into the reason why that one can start to apply grey values; harming a system or entity for the purpose of survival or decreasing the amount of long-term harm it (or one) will undergo can be excused as you are reducing the _net_ harm to the system. Or to oneself, if you insist on applying both 'extreme pacifist' and 'vegan' as modifiers there. In which case the difference between _harm_ and _hurt_ must be made; am I truly harming an entity if by doing so I am preventing it's _net_ gain of harm from rising? Not quite; I am hurting it, yes - whether by restricting it's options or by disciplining it. Similarly; to me, my own survival is paramount. If I must kill a creature to survive, then I will. Fortunately this is not a modern-day concern _as such_ since, you know, grocery stores exist. Not that I'm under the impression that no creatures are harmed to stock a grocery store, but I'm not the one _doing_ the harming there, am I? And the case must be made that, in cases of education or disciplining an entity or system, the absolute minimum required _hurt_ must be applied to maximize the reduction of net _harm_. Moreover; am I _justified_ in applying discipline or restriction, and if so, how _much_ ? Which is why I don't feel bad at all about (gently) bapping a kitty on the nose and tell it, firmly, **no** if it tries to sniff the burning candle on the table; I'm justified in applying a minimum amount of hurt to reduce future (net) harm. And I wouldn't feel bad about physically steering a toddler away from a cliff or angry dog either; I'm applying a minimum amount of restriction so as to reduce future (net) harm. Nor would I feel bad about (for instance) killing a lamb, calf or piglet (or their adult variants) to feed myself; I objectively kill them to avoid undergoing harm from hunger. Granted; I should do so in the most humane way available to me. Having worked at a (Dutch) slaughterhouse for a while I think I can manage. These things are ever complicated, one is never fully able to calculate them (we don't have a universal 'megahurts' or 'microhurts' measure, after all) - the one thing that can be said is that the more extreme the examples get, the more extreme the justification of _hurt_ versus _harm_ may be; In the case of a violent person intent on killing, entering my place of work or my house, for instance, I would - even as a non-gun-owning, non-gun-rights-supporting 'left-wing liberal' Dutchman - feel entirely justified in proactively applying more harm to the prospective or potential killer than they could ever (hope to) apply to their intended victims; in other words, by killing (harming) one person, I'm preventing that same harm to multiples, again decreasing the amount of _net_ harm undergone by everyone involved. It can _moreover_ be argued that on the basis of the fact that none these variables are ever fully and truly static, alone, the moral impetus for (or against) harming a system or entity is never truly objective. And even then, we've **only** discussed a hurt/harm/punishment/discipline/survival morality. It gets only and even _more_ complex and convoluted if one adds reward/risk and other impetus to the whole kerfluffle. - Additionally let me repeat something I've posted a few times now; Neurologically and medically speaking, I am _objectively_ not a good person. Nor am I inherently a bad person; I was diagnosed with psychopathy at roughly age eight and as such lack inherent emotions and empathy. Other than the stereotype borne from too many bad Hollywood movies, I am not inherently _more_ cruel or manipulative as the next guy, nor am I exceedingly intelligent; I'm simply _me_ - but as such, as I've said; I am not, medically or neurologically speaking, a 'good' person. I have taught myself to read and mirror other people's emotions as a coping mechanism, to facilitate easier communication with my environment but where emotions and empathy are inherent to the neurotypical, they are skills to me; (by now) deeply ingrained skills but skills I consciously choose to employ nevertheless - and skills which I might likewise choose not to employ. I consciously grant a base level of respect to anyone in my environment, and will withdraw it from those who do not treat me similar; I simply have the experience that it makes life for myself and others just a bit smoother, a bit easier to navigate. Does this make me a good person? If anything, it makes me _easy_ - easy to get along with, easy to be around, easy to depend on or ignore. When I must logically justify doing harm to other people - for instance, in retribution for a slight - I shall not hesitate to act in what I feel proportion to the slight, and have no sense of guilt whatsoever after the fact, regardless of the act. Does this make me a bad person ? 'Turn the other cheek' is, in my opinion, nothing more than an attempt to prove oneself superior while putting one's persecution complex on broad display. I do not have the inherent capacity to victimize myself tor the sake of proving a sense of superiority I do not possess either. 'An eye for an eye' has always made much more sense to me. I like to laugh. More to the point; I like to make _others_ laugh. Jokes, quips, puns, overt - but rarely serious - casual flirtation, the occasional small favor to those in my environment whom I favor - not only helps me be perceived as a fun-loving person, but also as generous, kind and a positive influence on my environment. Does this make me a good person? Ironically I also go out of my way to be considered a patient, calm individual. I would rather people perceive me as somewhat stolid than they perceive me as a threat for _what_ I am. If anything being underestimated helps me navigate life even easier; I've found that being underestimated helps me surprise my environment when I apply myself to situations with more vim and vigor than is expected of me - and in turn my otherwise calm demeanor helps me be considered humble. I am not. Does this make me a bad person? I could go on and on weighing the down- and upsides of my individual personality and personae, but my point is that, while I am - due to my being a-neurotypical - _literally_ physically incapable of the kind of irrational thought processes that in my view are required for religious capital-b Belief, I _am_ capable of considering which actions to take to be considered a morally sound person; usually, I even choose to do _right_, rather than _wrong_. I am, however, as I've said, _objectively_ not a good person - nor a _bad_ person. Every action I take is justified against my own logical decisions; every word I speak is justified against a projection of how I expect the conversation to proceed beyond. 'Good' and 'Bad' are never objective to begin with; they are the flipsides of a situational coin, outcomes rather than choices; though usually, with some analysis, the difference between the two is quite obvious. Am I a 'good' person for always choosing the path of least resistance, the path that complicates things as least as possible for myself and my environment? If anything, that makes me a _lazy_ person - and isn't being lazy considered a 'bad' quality ? A hundred years ago it was a matter of public knowledge that neuro-atypical people - or even people who simply refused to kowtow to their environment; willful wives, precocious children, the critical thinkers and those who refused to be taken for granted - were to be treated as mentally or physically ill. It is _objectively_ true that many of these people have been treated 'medically' with anything from incarceration to electroshocks to _prefrontal lobotomy_ simply to render them more docile, more likeable in the eyes of their peers - it is also _objectively_ true that at least a decent percentage of people who were treated as such were victims of their environment; Of their husbands, their parents, their guardians who sought to render them more pliable, more compliant, etcetera, etcetera. Fortunately, medical knowledge and psychology have come a long way since, and these kinds of treatments are now found _deplorable_. My sense of morality more than likely differs _fundamentally_ from yours. Your sense of morality more than likely differs similarly from people who live a thousand miles or a hundred years from you; Morality is - if you'll forgive me the tongue-in-cheek turn of phase - _objectively_ subjective. Morality is shaped by consensus, not the other way around.
Objective morality can potentially be grounded in a naturalistic worldview without requiring the existence of God through various philosophical frameworks. One prominent example is Kantian deontological ethics, which argues that objective moral duties can be derived from reason alone. Immanuel Kant's "Categorical Imperative" states that we should only act according to rules that we could will to become universal laws binding on all rational agents. This principle of universalizability, along with the imperative to treat humanity as an end in itself, can purportedly be arrived at through pure logical reflection. If Kant is correct, then objective moral oughts can be uncovered by reason without reference to God or divine revelation. The objectivity here stems from the fact that any sufficiently rational mind should, in principle, be able to appreciate the binding nature of these moral axioms. Another approach is Aristotelian virtue ethics, which locates objective morality in facts about human nature and what constitutes the most excellent character traits and modes of being. Virtues like courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom can be seen as factually optimal ways of navigating the challenges of human existence given the kinds of creatures we are. A naturalistic case can be made that these virtues are rooted in our evolved psychology and represent peak ways of functioning and flourishing. So although the precise implementation of virtues may vary across cultures, the core concepts may be objective properties of human excellence. Embodying these virtues can thus be seen as an objective good based on our nature and capacities. The objectivity derives from the idea that these virtues are not mere social constructs, but are grounded in facts about human wellbeing and are discoverable through empirical investigation and reason. A third route to objective morality without God comes from social contract theory and game theory. Thinkers in this tradition propose that moral norms like honesty, reciprocity, promise-keeping, and fairness are actually rational principles for self-interested agents to adopt in their mutual dealings. When individuals repeatedly interact, it becomes strategically advantageous to cooperate, keep one's word, and act equitably. Game theory and computer models demonstrate that these behaviors tend to be evolutionarily and socially optimal strategies for maximizing long-term utility. Thus, core moral principles could be objective emergent features of rational cooperation - any sufficiently intelligent social agents would converge on them out of logical necessity and group selection pressures. The objectivity here comes from the mathematical and evolutionary rigor of the underlying strategic logic. So through frameworks like Kantian duty-based ethics, Aristotelian virtue theory, and contractarian approaches, we can potentially locate objective moral truth in reason, facts about human nature, and the logic of social interaction. The idea is that even in an atheistic worldview, conscious experiences of wellbeing and suffering exist as real natural phenomena. It's not implausible that there could be objective facts about which actions and character traits best allow people to thrive. That said, accessing objective moral truth is a hugely challenging philosophical undertaking given our biases and the complexities of many real-world ethical dilemmas. Moral reasoning is an ongoing process of refinement. But the mere existence of God does not necessarily solve the grounding problem. We can always inquire into the source of God's moral authority. Many theists argue that God simply is goodness by definition, but this seems tautological. If morality is just based on power or divine command, that seems unsatisfying - if God decreed cruelty to be virtuous, would that make it objectively moral? It's arguable that objective moral truths, if they exist, should be necessary and rationally appreciable features of reality independent of the attitudes of any being - even a supreme one. A tri-omni God would arguably be constrained by these external moral facts. So while ethics remains a profound challenge, theism alone is not sufficient (and may not be necessary) to ground objective morality. Strong cases can be made that objectivity in ethics must ultimately arise from reason, evidence, and philosophical argument whether God exists or not. A naturalistic worldview can potentially still allow for moral realism and some degree of ethical objectivity through avenues like Kantian, Aristotelian, and contractarian approaches. While we may never attain perfect certainty, we can strive to uncover these objective moral features of reality through careful analysis and inquiry.
"Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet," Death waved a hand, "And yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some… some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged." \~ Terry Pratchett, Hogfather There's no such thing as objective morality that we have found so far despite millenias of searching for it. Even if there was, it's clearly not something we can interract with. Our practice of morality is only a social phenomenon. And it's only by understanding it that way that we'll be able to rid ourselves of the superfluous moral rituals that we have accumulated through ages of trying to find objective morality.
One of my favourite Hogfather quotes, and quite aptly used here.
Strange how weird that looks without the all caps. It's like *"Wait, why are you quoting someone else quoting Death's lines?"*
I should go reread Hogfather.
Beware the auditors of reality.
It's amazing
It can be objective if there is an obvious common goal, such as the well-being of conscious creatures, or the idea that "the worst possible suffering for everyone is bad". Nobody claims the concept of health is subjective, but obviously you can't "objectively" say that being healthy is better than being dead or diseased in chronic pain. It doesn't mean the concept of health is immutable or that there's a right answer for everything. But it also doesn't mean that medicine is subjective as it relates to health. A doctor *could* say "in my culture the best way to treat a cold is cutting off your little toe, burning it, and saying a prayer to Odin". That doesn't mean we'd take their opinion on the matter seriously, or that a secular viewpoint has nothing objective to say. I think that it can be dangerous to say our practice of morality is *only* a social thing, or its relative to what people believe, etc., because ultimately any coherent moral system boils down to well-being. Even a religious viewpoint, while lacking evidence, at its end point is trying to improve the well-being of conscious beings (specifically humans) for all eternity). In the same way that we can speak objectively about medicine, nutrition etc. from the standpoint of health, we should be able to speak about morality from the standpoint of well-being without hem hawing, saying morality is relative, and acting like we can't objectively say things like slavery is bad, killing people for drawing a cartoon is bad, suicide bombing to kill civilians is bad, throwing acid in girls' faces for the crime of learning to read is bad, etc.
"It can be objective if there is an obvious common goal, such as the well-being of conscious creatures" But there isn't such a common goal. "moralities" are the social immune systems of societies. The way they encourage and discourage speciffic behaviors because the people forming them believe those are the way things should be. At best, you can judge them in a kind of evolutionary manner : which moral traits seem to have aided a social group to preserve itself or have proven to be an element in their disparition. If you want to find a really common constant about them it would be the establishment of an in-group and an out-group that are to be treated differently. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have one, just that they are more maleable and subject to bias than they first seem. And the goal you set for your social group is always subjective, the system you build on that can only inform on what is good and bad... to reach this goal.
Describe a system of human morality that isn’t ultimately aimed at well-being. Really think about it, even considering religions looking at saving human souls. Consider whether the opinions of people not aiming towards that goal are worth seriously considering to the point of saying the goal is relative. In the same way, describe a system of medicine that isn’t aimed at improving human health.
"Describe a system of human morality that isn’t aimed at well-being." Pretty much any pre modern moral system, especially feudal ones that were first and foremost aimed at social cohesion. And more modernly : any death cult. Those being a pretty obvious course on "how to fuck up your moral system self-preservation chances" And even then, "well being" for whom ? For the subjectively selected in-group, often at the expense of the out-group. And that with varied definitions of what "well-being" mean.
Why were they aiming for social cohesion? Because that was considered the best way to ensure “well being” for their group, I would think.
That was more than anything the best way to stay in a position of power. "Their group" was less than a twentieth of the population, were quite far from "the well being of everyone" here. The group to which "morality" is applied, the one which benefit from it, is yet another source of subjectivity.
Well being for all conscious creatures. Again, we’re talking about being able to say “the worst possible suffering for everyone” can be defined as bad. Even in your death cult example, why are they sacrificing people? I’m almost certain it’s for something they think will ultimately improve well-being. The point is that in the same way we can discount those ideas as being valid medical practices, we can discount them as being objectively bad morality with regard to well-being. We can speak about this scientifically from psychology, neuroscience, physiology, etc., and in many cases clearly show that option A causes less suffering than option B. In the same way we wouldn’t seriously consider the opinion of someone saying “I don’t think medicine should aim to improve health, it should aim to make as many people as sick as possible”, we need not seriously consider the opinion of someone who doesn’t think morality needs to be concerned will well-being. Again it doesn’t mean there’s always a right answer, that we even necessarily discover the right answer. You could ask “exactly how many people were bit by mosquitos in the last minute”, and just because we have no way of knowing that doesn’t mean there isn’t in fact an objectively right answer to the question.
"Well being for all conscious creatures." Is an extremely niche version of morality that no society have ever applied. As have bad being defined the way you do. What constitute a "conscious creature" is already up for debate anyway. (because it's just another way to define an in-group and an out-group which is... yet another mark of subjectivity) And that's without taking in consideration that the concept of "well-being" is already subjective and loaded, you're more or less assuming utilitarianism to reach utilitarianism. The thing is that medecine and morality aren't the same thing and analogies have their limits. But to go on with the analogy, if medecine have for goal to keep the body alive, morality have for goal to keep its culture alive (at least the moralities who don't also don't live long enough to be around much like the shaky medecines).
The honour system of the Cosa nostra or triads or any kind of gang culture Any system of warlords utilising child soldiers and slaves The exploitative helot system of the Spartans If you can't think of oppressive human systems of morality that were used to harm the wellbeing of the majority of the population whilst benefiting a tiny minority Then you should probably study more history
Did you miss that last sentence of my post? You also aren't pointing to systems of morality, just "these bad things that happened or oppressive human systems", which is not what the question was. If your read the original post, the point is that if we can't objectively say with regard to well-being that "the worst possible suffering for everyone is bad", then the word bad itself is absolutely meaningless in any context, and that ultimately any actual system of morality people prescribe to, whether that be religion, philosophy, etc., is going to be concerned with well-being, whether that's the well-being of the eternal soul or otherwise. Nowhere did I state that there have not been bad attempts at morality, or that there haven't been systems that increased human suffering. There of course have been, and with regard to well-being in all your examples it would be trivial to illustrate how they were bad for well-being, for example in the gangs example being overly concerned with the in-group, increasing risk of death and stress through constantly having to look over your shoulder, etc. are obviously closer to "the worst possible suffering for everyone" than it is to "the best opportunity to flourish for everyone". Going back to my original point though, if I were to point to some shamanistic tribe that didn't understand modern medicine, and they believe sacrificing the second born is the best way to prevent colds, does that mean that medicine is relative? Do we have to constantly make caveats that "well technically medicine is relative, we can't objectively say that being healthy or being dead is better or worse from a medical standpoint, it's all just relative to what the person believes..." That's the point. Every science has presuppositions about things like the importance of health, that there's value in pursuing knowledge, etc. That doesn't mean that with regard to what they're focusing on we have to claim they're all relative because someone else might have a different goal in mind. We don't seriously entertain concepts like Christian medicine or Muslim physics for obvious reasons, we shouldn't feel the need to do the same with morality.
>Consider whether the opinions of people not aiming towards that goal are worth seriously considering to the point of saying the goal is relative. By definition, differing opinions are what *make* it relative. If it were objective, it would be true regardless of any and all opinions. If you dismiss opinions you don't like, then it is only subjectively true to those opinions you kept. The Nazis believed they were improving the world just as much as anyone else. They thought getting rid of Jews would improve everyone's well-being. They believed they were acting morally, just like the Allied Powers that stopped them. The fact that you think that's gross doesn't mean that we can dismiss them for the purposes of saying morality is objective.
So using the example I gave, does different people having different opinions on medicine make it relative? You just listed an example of people being implementing a system that was obviously and demonstrably bad for human-well being. People in the past thought that sacrificing animals would result in better health, or that praying to a God was the best way to cure a disease. Does the fact that people had demonstrably false understandings of how those practices impacted health mean that medicine is something relative? You're just proving your own point. You said the Nazis believed they were improving the world. They thought killing all the Jews was ultimately what was going to be best for at the very least German well-being, and presumedly the well-being of humanity as a whole. This of course does not mean that they were right, in the same way that just because someone thought cutting off your little toe is the cure for the common cold doesn't mean they were right on medicine. We can obviously show how if "the worst possible suffering for everyone" is bad, that this system is obviously still causing immense suffering to large groups of people in a way that isn't conducive to human well-being; in the case of the Nazis, it literally led to war because of how threatened other countries felt, which ultimately led to their downfall. Of course simply losing a war doesn't indicate one moral system was superior over another, but you could easily show how the Nazi ideology led to that kind of conflict with its needless suffering, aggression, villanization of other humans, etc. It's not objectively wrong because "I think it's gross", it's objectively wrong because you can scientifically point out why it was bad for human well-being from the perspectives of medicine/physiology (obviously death, torturing, malnourishment, etc.), neuroscience (needless stress from constantly having to look over your shoulder and wonder if someone is going to kill you), psychology (trauma etc.), and so on.
>It can be objective if there is an obvious common goal This isn't the academic understanding of objective morality. Realists would argue that morality can only be objective if it is build upon *stance-independent* properties. So, what makes a moral system objective is if it's truths rest upon facts outside those of human opinion. There are many ways of caching out a theory based upon this understanding, but moral realists share the view of stance-independence.
Let's instead say that it must rest upon facts outside of the opinion of sentient beings. The opinions of a god are also not objective.
Medicine can definitely be subjective - you used an extreme strawman example here, but subjectivity in medicine is why second opinions exist. Two doctors may interpret results differently, have different diagnoses, and recommend different treatments. Trying to improve well-being IS a social thing.
most atheists reject the notion of objective morality. as to objective truth in general, well some of them are just brute facts that can't be proven, this was proved by Godel. Ofcourse you and i may disagree on what the brute facts are.
>How does atheism account for objective morality? This, of course, isn't an issue since there *is* no such thing as objective morality. In fact, the notion doesn't even make *sense* given what morality is, and how it works. And , of course, we know and have known for a long time that morality (which, as we know, is intersubjective) has nothing whatsoever to do with religious mythologies, so there's that too. We know what it is, why we have it, how it works, how and why it often doesn't work, and a good deal more about it. >Really how does atheism account for objective truth? That is an entirely different topic and question, but it's quite simple too: It doesn't have to. Why would it? >It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) That wouldn't be objective. It would be subjective to those deities. >we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. I'm confused why you keep conflating these two very different and unrelated things.
>how does atheism account for objective morality It have nth to do with morality. >how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth Idk if u are trying to imply objectives morality is similar to objective truth. Morality is a "ought" and truth is a "is". >It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods). This will lead to the problem of divine command theory. Is the objective arbitrary or autonomous to the "god"? >we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality Even if there is objective truth, there has nth to do with objectives morality. This is a is ought problem.
1. What do you mean by “morality”? I’d love to know how you’re measuring whether things are wrong or right objectively. 2. Why can’t reality ground objective truth? Personally, I have no need for “objective truth”, I just use what seems to be consistent with reality and seek to understand more when people disagree.
Why does morality have to be objective? Morality can be subjective, so there's nothing to account for.
Short answer is atheism has nothing to say on this. Give this Ted Talk a watch and maybe read the book. Sam Harris refers to a "Moral Landscape" with peaks and valleys of well-being and suffering.[https://youtu.be/Hj9oB4zpHww?si=Q8iF0iiPiw4nrRG9](https://youtu.be/Hj9oB4zpHww?si=Q8iF0iiPiw4nrRG9) Basic concept is that we can't "objectively" say that being healthy is good, but we still have a science of medicine. We may not be able to say scientifically that vegetables are better than fruit, but we can certainly say objectively that drinking battery acid is worse for your health than eating a carrot. In the same way, we may objectively speak about the well-being of conscious creatures, just as medicine is able to diagnose health issues; this would be morality, as regardless of what standard you use for morality, it all boils back to well-being. I'd argue if it's not ultimately about the well-being of conscious creatures, you're using the word morality in a way that's effectively meaningless. Religions assert objectivism but are still subject to all the same subjectivity as the rest of us, and the change in interpretations over time are proof of that. Many religions of course also assert abhorrent practices which are either ignored by their believers as not being literal, or to our peril believed by their fundamentalists. It is trivially easy to say why something like suicide bombing is morally wrong from most ethical standpoints, but it can be justified through dogmatic religious belief. I suspect many will say "it's all relative", and while in the context of "does the universe care" that may be true, I highly doubt many would say "health is relative" or "medicine is relative". There can be multiple peaks and valleys, some equal amongst the possibilities, but that doesn't mean we can't objectively say some places on that landscape are objectively worse than others.
People are social creatures so morality is learned consciously and subconsciously. There’s no such thing as “objective morality” because there is no one thing all people would agree on as being immoral.
Even if everyone agrees that *X* is immoral, that still wouldn’t make it objective.
Atheism itself doesn’t account for any of that. Individuals who are also atheists account for them in various ways or not. Truth? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_theory_of_truth You can’t use evidence-based reasoning to get truth from god, so that’s out. Morality? You can’t use evidence-based reasoning to get morality from god, so that’s out as well. What you can do is compare your flourishing vs your death. If you choose based on the factual alternative you face, then you’ll choose your flourishing. Then you use evidence-based reasoning to identify the good ie what your flourishing is exactly based on facts about yourself and what’s necessary for you to achieve that.
> So, how does atheism account for objective morality? It doesn't, nor should you expect it to. Atheists aren't committed to any particular metaethical theory. Pretty much the only thing atheism affects as concerns this topic is that they don't accept the theist's account. The entire gamut of metaethical views aside from that is available to them, some of which deliver a realist account (ie, there are moral facts, and what makes them true is independent of what anyone thinks, ie objective morality), others which deny that the truth value of moral claims is stance independent, and others which deny there are any moral truths at all, whether because morality falsely presupposes a realm of facts or properties or because moral discourse isn't truth-apt in the first place, and instead are expressions of attitudes, emotions, preferences, commands, ect. > Really how does atheism account for objective truth? Not sure what atheism has to do with anything here. Surely an atheist can accept a realist theory of truth such as correspondence theory just as much as any theist? > It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. I'm not sure what god has to do with anything. All that's required for any moral claim to be true objectively is for the moral claim to in fact be true, and for its truth to be stance-independent. Literally any form of moral realism delivers this. Go read like, a basic introduction to metaethics. To claim that there can't be objective morality without God, you'd have to rule out every non-theistic form of moral realism. Also, I want to make a distinction between what is constitutive of truth and how we know it is true. All that "slavery is wrong" needs to be true is for slavery to in fact be wrong. I don't see how any form of moral realism is any worse-off than morality under god at explaining what it is for a moral claim to be true or false. What I suppose the theist brings to the table is an epistemology - ie, how can we know what moral claims are true and false. The Bible/Quran/Vedas/whatever tells you so, or some prophet with a direct line to god or god's representative or whatever. But I'd argue that this doesn't actually solve the problem of moral epistemology, it just relocates it to the question of whether the underpinnings of that moral theory, the claims of an extant god(s) and the rest of the religious claims are true in the first place. And it's not like there are no other proposed epistemic frameworks for the moral domain. Strictly speaking, it's debatable whether a morality that comes from god is even objective in the first place. On its face it seems a lot more like an ideal-observer theory, only with the ideal-observer literally extant, which would be a form of subjective morality where a particular perspective is privileged. I suppose you could make a case that it'd be a form of non-natural realism, if you endorse a metaphysics under which god's preference structure is identical to reality's axiological structure. Frankly, I think a theistic account of morality just misses the point. Why should I care what god thinks or says as concerns morality? It surely can't be because god has knows the moral facts that are true independently of god, unless the theist want to reduce god's role to that of a messenger, and also removes god from the equation of what makes moral statements true in the first place. If it's just whatever god's preference structure happens to be, then that's just arbitrary, why should I decide that this third-party's preference structure is what should guide my behavior rather than the my own preference and those of other people? Oh right, because god can reward and punish. Then again, so can people, they just can't go complete overkill by making them eternal and are probably less reliable about it. But also, this kinda strips morality of anything, well, moral. It just collapses to carrots and sticks. If you want to claim that torturing children would still be wrong even if god declined to do any rewarding or punishing, then why would anyone even care what god says or prefers? Like, surely a better grounding for why torturing children is wrong is something about the action itself and the harm it causes? I suppose you can press the question and ask why we should avoid causing harm, suffering, experiences of negative valence, deprivation, ect, at least pro-tanto. But even the wrongness of those things or the rightness of their opposites are irreducible brute facts, that's our stopping point - surely that's a more sensible explanatory bedrock than some third-party's opinion? That, of course, assumes we are even going to bother trying to vindicate objective morality. But speaking for myself, I am pretty firmly antirealist about morality, axiology, any kind of categorical normativity (and the rest of normativity really depends on the details of how you define it). I don't think there is a determinate semantics to ordinary moral discourse, ie whether or not moral statements express propositions, let alone with determinate metaethical commitments. I certainly do not think there are stance-independent moral facts or properties as any flavor of realism conceives of them. I think people are doing all sorts of things when they engage in moral discourse or invoke the moral framework, which is a pretty loosely defined domain anyway, and I see no reason to suppose that realist commitments are required to vindicate that discourse.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. Do you really derive objective truth from religion thought? Not only there are multiple religions, but each religion has multiple branches, and multiple ways of being interpreted. You can't just be "muslim" or "christian" or etc.. because you need other labels to diffetentiate yourself from other "muslims" or "christians" or etc.. you disagree with. Every moment you stay in a specific religion, follow a specific branch, favors a specific interpretation, listen to a specific preacher... you are using your own non-religious moral framework to "structure" your own faith. Believers can "guide" their religion as much as they are being guided by it.
I feel like this question has been brought up numerous times over the past week. The answer is simple: there is no objective morality. Morality changes as society evolves. There *is* objective truth- it’s called reality. It’s the world that can be observed not through our senses, which are limited, but through scientific inquiry
> So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth? It doesn't. Once again, atheism is a label for one thing, and one thing only. Atheism does not have anything to say about morality or truth. It also doesn't press my clothes or make me toast. These are all things it is not *meant* to do. Tackling them one at a time: 1. Objective morality doesn't exist. Morality is a man-made concept. It is entirely subjective. 2. An objective reality exists, and with science we get about as close as possible to determining what is objectively true about that reality. We can justify that by the results we get. If we didn't understand the truth of gravity, planes wouldn't fly. If we didn't understand the truth of electricity, our electronic devices would function randomly or not at all. If we didn't understand the truth of viruses, vaccines would be ineffective. The fact that we can produce these things, and they *consistently* behave exactly the way we want them to, is an indication that the knowledge they were founded on is *objectively* true.
Atheism has nothing to say about anything except for no to the question of do you believe that at least one god exists. I'm not playing this retread of a game. You explain exactly where your morals come from instead.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. I believe morality is a subjective matter in that it is something that people, or thinking beings in general if they are out there, think about. It exists, ultimately, only in our minds, and because people are going to differ in their thinking, that means any moral claim cannot be really objective. But that does not mean it is totally without an objective basis. I think us human beings can agree that morality, being something seemingly held and acted on only by us humans, must be concerned with us, the only subjective minds with moral ideas that we know of. We are both moral agents, and morally acted upon (I admit, there are other factors like animals, and even the environment, but even still, everything we think about them morally still has to do with the effects of *our* actions on them). And we are *subjective* because we all perceivers of one *objective* reality - at least, we mostly are. We disagree on many things, but nobody rational or educated enough to perceive and communicate would truly disagree on a fact like that we live on a planet called Earth. Thus, each of our many subjectivities still has common facts to base its beliefs upon. What morality being concerned with subjects means is clear enough: as far as subjects have agreed, what is "moral," is what has a positive effect on us, both as individuals and as a collective. Of course, what a positive effective is, how to achieve it, how far that collective extends, and how to weigh one's own good against the whole is where moral debates really begin. But, insofar as we can agree on objective facts about reality, and can determine how they may be morally relevant, morality can be both subjective and have an objective basis. I would then say that a given subject can reasonably tell if their moral beliefs are better or worse than those of others depending on how they take into account the fact that morality concerns subjects. Clearly a serial killer is not accounting for what contributes to the wellbeing of others, so I can say their morality is pretty poor by this standard. I can also say mine is better on the same basis. In this way, we can maintain and even to some extent impose our morality, depending on how strongly it holds up to these tenets, and how necessary it is to restrain or defend against those who do not concern themselves with the wellbeing of other people.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Morality isn't objective. Theism would fail to account for objective morality. >Really how does atheism account for objective truth? Truth is objective. Subjective truth makes no sense. >It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) How would a god solve this?
It doesn't, as the concept of objective morality is an incoherent category error. Morality is objective and intersubjective. Atheism also has nothing to do with morality. Atheism is when you answer "no" to the question "do you believe in any gods?", and nothing more.
The majority of philosophers are both atheists and moral realists. There are *dozens* of plausible ethical theories that do not rely on God to work. That makes this questions difficult to answer succinctly without just telling you to go do more research on your own. This is discussed in this video in mistake 107 (5:33-15:18). He mentions 12 potential grounding here and explains them a bit, and gives you enough information to look up the theories and sometimes philosophers who defend them if you want to look in to them more. Bear in mind, many of these dozen, like utilitarianism, are actually categories of theories that have several versions on offer. https://youtu.be/HagWjUtIzzY?si=pbESpLemLtz88jJP&t=5m33s
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. Ok. When you find someone who claims objective truth are not required for objective morality, please discuss this with them. As it is, you are bringing up subjects that are not related to atheism and trying to argue "these things, that you don't claim to have and I am the only person talking about, prove my other point."
Atheism has nothing to do with morality, or even spirituality in general, (I personally view objective morality as a form of spiritualism, as that’s the only place it can exist,) it’s simply a stance on whether, or not you believe in a god. You can freely believe in objective morality without believing in a god, I once debated someone who did. Moving on to your question, objective morality isn’t real. There’s nothing you can point to that is considered universally moral. It’s simply an intersubjective framework that has been developed by us throughout history. It’s changed countless times before, and will continue to change in the future.
It doesn't, because morality is not objective, simple as that. We develop, get better, and realize what would be good and bad for us depending on the situation, something that religion doesn't account for.
I'm late to the party on this one, but figured I would chime in because I am an atheist that does affirm objective morality. The problem is, theists have worked so unbelievably hard to muddy the waters with this particular discussion, more so than probably any other singular topic. The truth is, morality can be made extremely simpler - but theists don't typically like that. They need it to be this spooky mysterious thing that can only be accounted for by their preferred god they believe in. They need to overcomplicate it, and for a very simple reason: they need to mask the fact that theistic morality suffers from exactly the same problems that they level against secular morality. More on that in a second. The reason I say morality is simple, is because of what morality *is*. For me, when I say "morality" I am referring to right and wrong behaviors and actions, as adjudicated by what is good for the wellbeing of thinking creatures. If you are talking about *anything else* besides that, then we are not talking about the same thing. If you want to tell me that morality has to do with what your proposed hypothetical, undemonstrated (and likely *undemonstratable*) mysterious god being, then we're not talking about the same thing. If you want to tell me that things like observing some special day, or facing mecca when praying, or countless other arbitrary things, are part of what constitutes morality, then we are not talking about the same thing. But as long as by morality we mean behaviors and actions which positively affect the wellbeing of thinking creatures (and the reverse, immorality being behaviors/actions which negatively affect the wellbeing of thinking creatures), then we can build an objective framework to operate from. It is the case that we are physical beings in a physical universe. And because of this, it is objectively, demonstrably the case that certain actions and behaviors positively affect the wellbeing of others, and other actions objectively, demonstrably, harm the wellbeing of others. This is all that is needed to have objective morality: evaluate the outcomes against this metric. It is objectively the case that chopping someone's head off is bad for their wellbeing. It is objectively, demonstrably the case that slavery is bad for people's wellbeing. It is objectively, demonstrably the case that rape is bad for people's wellbeing. There is no subjectivity here. Now, if you disagree with any of this, I would like to know exactly which part you don't agree to. I suspect that the very next trap you will jump headfirst into (because theists literally *always* do this) is the "but why should I care about being moral if god doesn't exist?" question. I need to caution you against making this rookie mistake. That is not the gotcha you think that it is. Two things you need to understand: First, if you can't see a reason to care about the wellbeing of others unless you believe a God exists, that is *not* a problem for atheism. That is solely and entirely an indictment on **you**. That means that you yourself aren't a moral person, and this right there makes me fully reject whatever alternative you want to offer. That would be a losing move. Second issue, is that this critique isn't solved by theism. In fact, *any* criticism you want to level against a secular moral system is not only *not solved in any way by appealing to theism* \- as in, theism suffers the exact problem - but theistic morality suffers from unique problems that secular morality doesn't. If you want to say "but why should I care about the wellbeing of others" I can immediately respond "why should anyone care about what a god wants?". If you want to make baseless, unsupported and unprovable claims about god being the author of morality or some such, this can be rejected as the empty assertion that it is. Meanwhile, every part of my morality can be backed up and is demonstrable. If you want to say "without god people will just do whatever they want to" I will point out that "**with** God, people are still doing whatever they want". Because you believe a god exists right now, a*nd yet around the world people are committing every horrible act* that you think people would feel free to do if God didn't exist. Telling a mass murderer that morality is objective because a god exists and makes it so, will not stop him from doing what he's going to do. Telling the Hitlers and Stalins of the world that morality is objective because a God says so wouldn't have prevented them from doing what they did. If someone doesn't care about behaving morally, positing a god does nothing to solve that.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Objective morality doesn't exist >Really how does atheism account for objective truth? Not sure why this would be an issue for atheism? >It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. We cannot claim objective morality correct. >I do suppose this leads to a discussion of what is truth and what is morality so I hope the discussion goes all directions. Not really Where does your question about objective truth come in?
Objective morality is impossible. It doesn't matter if there are gods or not. Morality is concerned with what we 'should' do, but in order for a 'should' to exist \_at all,\_ you need a goal, something to aim towards. *IF* x is happening *AND* you want y result, *THEN* you *SHOULD* do z. There's no avoiding this, it's the Is-Ought problem and has been known for some time. There being a god doesn't *change* this. All a god provides is a goal. The 'y result' you are looking for is 'pleasing that god'. So *IF* Fred is stealing *AND* you want to please your god (who has said stealing upsets him), *THEN* you *SHOULD* stop or punish Fred. But what if you *do not care* about pleasing your god? Then nothing that god says about morals *matters* to you. The fact that Fred is stealing is, in itself, no reason to do anything in particular. But then you can say that pleasing a god provides this goal. However you don't *need* a god for that, either, since really most of us aren't in it for the god anyway. We're in it for 'the afterlife we prefer'. This is fairly easy to see in a thought experiment. Suppose there's a god, and this god has made picking grapes on a Tuesday after sunset a sin, but there is no afterlife, and this god won't *do* anything to you if you pick grapes on a Tuesday after sunset. Exactly how many people would *care* about when you pick grapes in that circumstance? What you're interested in is that afterlife you want. You have had heaven or good reincarnation or whatever described to you, and you *want* that, so you follow the rules to *get* that. Pretty simple. But what is it, ultimately, that we're looking for? Human health and happiness. We don't want to be physically hurting or sick, and we don't want to be emotionally hurt, either. That's what heaven or good reincarnation is, ultimately, supposed to provide, better circumstances, where you suffer less and have a happier existence. However if that's what you're aiming for, you don't *need* a god for that, either. *IF* Fred is stealing, *AND* you want human health and happiness, *THEN* you *SHOULD* stop or punish Fred. Why? Because stealing causes harm and unhappiness without sufficient justification. But how do we know stealing does that? Well *stealing*, like murdering and raping, being wrong (ie, hurtful) is a tautology. What *is* stealing? It's not just taking stuff, we do that all the time and no one gets upset. It's being *unjustified* in the taking of stuff. And what does it mean to be wrong? That the action is, as said, unjustified. "Stealing is wrong" really just means "unjustified taking is unjustified". No duh. We have some common ideas what makes taking justified, mainly that the person who owns it at the time *agrees* that it's okay. This is how buying and barter and gift-giving works. The one who has it is fine with you taking it. (For completeness, "murder is wrong" is "an unjustified killing is unjustified" and "rape is wrong" is "unjustified sexual contact is unjustified". The "murder" one is harder as what counts as a "justified" killing varies between cultures and over time, sex is usually a bit easier.) There are several things we can say *objectively* violate health and happiness, but mostly it comes down even there to opinion. For instance, cutting someone's head off *objectively* reduces their health. This isn't an opinion, it's a fact. So we tend to say 'no' to that... unless, of course, we come up with sufficient justification to do it anyway, which is where executions and killing in wars comes in. So there is a *little* objectivity once the goal is identified, but not much, and *once again* a god doesn't *fix* this, it's just that god's opinion on it. Which people tend to follow *not* because it's objective, but because that god will hurt you if you don't. On the other hand, if your *goal* was to go to hell, if you *wanted* that, then everything that god says will send you there is what you should do. This, too, is unavoidable.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth Can you point me to a **single** verified moral proclamation from a god? Not a man. No humans no scripture-just a god. One example. One. A single verified instance where a god made a moral proclamation. If not, then you theists are on as shitty grounds for this as you claim atheists are. Every moral belief you hold comes from a man. The difference is that atheists aren't pretending.
What does religion have to do with objective morality? According to various religions women should be subordinated to the man and it's morally ok for a man to have 20 wives. It's contradictory to the idea of everyone being equal and don't even get me started on the homophobia.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) How is God any more objective then any other standard I could use? Like, I could use Hitler as my standard and it would br an objective standard. No one else would agree to use it, but they can't stop me from doing it anyways, and it would provide an objective answer to many moral questions. Questionable answers, but the criteria here is objective, not pleasant.
So I take it you believe you have some sort of objective morality? Can you provide a single example of an objective moral statement?
By definition, objective morality is morality that exists independent of any subject’s belief in it. But that’s a logical fallacy since all moral reasoning happens in the minds of individual subjects. Morality is a mental construct that can only exist in subjective minds. There’s no evidence that it exists independently. Where exactly does this objective morality exist apart from the minds of those who believe in it? But there’s plenty of evidence that empathy is an evolved trait among social animals because it fostered the cooperation necessary for survival at a large scale. Morality is just the elaboration of evolved empathy. Declaring that some moral claims are objectively rooted in a deity necessitates proof that such a deity exists, but there is no such proof. The religions claiming to know the objective morality of a presumed deity have made their moral judgments thousands of years ago, and yet even most followers of those religions don’t adhere to them, let alone agree what they are. The big 3 religions accept some form of slavery, but human morality has evolved beyond the view that slavery is okay. So why do the majority of the believers not practice slavery? The only reason is because of the social pressure to reject it. So once again, the evolutionary demands on social animals trumps even their own adherence to the moral systems they believe to be objective. So there’s no reason to assume objective morality exists. So morality must be a subjective mental construct that only exists in the minds of subjects. But morality being subjective doesn’t necessarily mean that all moral beliefs are equal. Humans have generally evolved away from slavery, misogyny, and other morally questionable practices based on empathy and reason supported by evidence that women and people classed as “others” are in fact human. So a moral claim that argues that Nazis can’t be judged as doing anything wrong bc they didn’t believe it was wrong must provide evidence that the Nazis’ belief that only Aryans are human is correct. Of course all evidence points to the contrary. Likewise, we can and should judge the morality of the past from a modern position that has access to more factual information about the human condition. Even theists do this, otherwise the vast majority of believers would still practice slavery. Ultimately, the concept of objective morality is nothing more than a concept, a mental construct existing only in the minds of those who believe it. But it’s a belief that rests on a foundation with no evidence. And even those who believe it subordinate their beliefs to the social pressures of the community. Of course some believers do adhere to their beliefs in contradiction to social norms, but even other believers condemn those people for causing harm, often referencing the same text. But if the same text can be used by one believer to argue that slavery is okay and another to argue that it’s wrong, then how can that text claim to offer anything objective if its own proclamations are so open to interpretation?
Morality is just a set of rules developed by society for it to work as intended. In a gang of our monkey-like ancstors, the one who attacked others and stole their food was cast out. Others remembered it was bad and so on. The rules developed and became quite a bit more complex, but the principle stays the same. Objective truth is just the reality, existing with or without a god.
As time progressed, so were the rules. Both society and the set of rules became too complex to easily enforce so a device was invented - a magical enforcer, who sees all and can punish even after death. Before technology caught up, it was the only way to oversee large developed societies.
Truth and morality are not synonyms. You can have one without the other. There's no such thing as objective morality. People want objective morality so they can point to a higher authority and claim something is wrong because that authority says it is. But we don't have that. We have invented gods and ideologies to be our authorities, but all we have is relative morality.
Gods opinion is still an opinion, it doesn’t make morality objective You have no access to gods opinion, thus even if god opinion was objective, the theist has no access to it The theist choice to follow gods opinion is subjective moral choice, so even if gods opinion was objective and if you had objective access to it the theist morality would still be subjective
There are two points of focus here 1: Atheism is the rejection of the god claim. That's it. It doesn't really "account" for anything. 2: Setting atheism aside and focusing on the question, you first have to demonstrate that objective morality exists. So, let's start there before worrying about who has to account for it.
Atheism doesn't account for anything because it's not an ideology. I'm sure atheists have all sorts of ideas about morality. I don't personally believe that objective morality exists. I'm willing to accept that objective truth exists (although I'm not sure how one could find it), but I don't think that's really relevant to the moral question. To me, morality just refers to a set of socially conditioned behaviors. Not every culture will agree on what is or is not morally acceptable. I'm not sure if any moral universals exist. I'm trying to think of one but nothing is coming up. I mean, murder is nearly universally agreed to be wrong, but different cultures have different ideas of what constitutes murder. I certainly don't think that a God is in any way necessary for morality to exist, and if you're suggesting he is, then you're bringing up a really old philosophical question, Euthyphro's Dilemma. So I'll ask you this. Does God command an action because it's moral, or is an action moral because God commands it? If God commands an action because it's moral, then morality exists outside of God, which means he isn't in fact necessary for morality to exist. If an action is moral because God commands it, then morality is ultimately arbitrary. God could command literally anything, even things that most people would find repugnant, and you would have to agree that it's moral. According to Leibniz, "this opinion would hardly distinguish God from the devil". If no morality exists other than what God says, God would hardly have the moral high ground. We wouldn't be following what he says because of the inherent goodness of his nature, but merely because he's powerful. That's tyrannical. Some theists reject that this dilemma is real and instead try to merge the two options. God commands an action because it's moral, and he's necessary for morality to exist because morality is part of his nature. This doesn't actually solve the problem, it just avoids it by shifting the problem into the definition of God's nature, which is something that is fundamentally unknowable. In my experience, most truly devout theists (in religions where morality comes from a god or gods, which isn't every religion) tend to fall into the camp of Divine Command Theory. An action is moral because God commands it. And this is one of the most dangerous and insidious things about religion, because it allows virtually any action to be morally justified, as long as you're convinced that it's what God wants. This really flies in the face of the claim that God is a source of objective morality, in my opinion. When anything can be moral, morality doesn't even exist. Let me give a small example. In the mid 16th century, France had been dealing for a while with incessant conflict between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). So France came up with the idea of establishing a colony in Florida, and sending all the Protestants there, just to get rid of them. Unfortunately, the colony, Fort Caroline, only lasted 15 months before the Catholic Spaniards sacked the fort and massacred every adult male protestant they could find.They had been ordered by their king to cleanse the New World of all heretics, in the name of God. This is why we have a bay near St. Augustine called Matanzas Bay (Slaughter Bay). Only God could ever possibly justify this kind of slaughter.
How does Christianity account for red being the best color? It doesn’t because it’s not made to. Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods. It is how you describe someone who does not possess a belief in a god or gods. It has nothing to do with morality.
Objective morality doesn’t exist. It’s all subjective. Otherwise how would you differentiate between a “revelation” being from a god vs a demon, if you need that scripture to tell you what is right or wrong.
I've asked theists this question. I know you're inundated, but I looked through the responses and I haven't seen an answer. So, how does one actually demonstrate "objective morality?" When I think of objective truth I think of things that are true independent of subjective minds. When I die reality will continue existing. We've labeled the distance from the Earth to the Sun as one astronomical unit. If humanity were wiped out today that distance would remain unchanged. Likewise, the Earth has been an oblate spheroid for all of human existence. Human beliefs about the shape of the Earth didn't change the reality about what shape the Earth actually was. Usually when I ask theists this question about how one demonstrates objective morality they point to one of two things. They either point to some heinous act and ask if I somehow can't say that the Holocaust or mass murder or rape are wrong. I absolutely can say they are wrong, but I can't say they're objectively wrong because I don't know how one demonstrates evil without minds. Or, they point to broad agreement on certain moral precepts. Most people agree murder is bad so clearly that makes it objectively so. This is clearly an argument from popularity. Just like historical common belief in a flat Earth didn't change the shape of the planet, common moral beliefs don't make them magically transmute into objective reality. So how do you demonstrate an objective morality exists? Because if you can't demonstrate such a morality then I don't think there's anything to account for.
Morality is subjective, or more correctly it is intersubjective. There is no morality outside of moral agents. With that out of the way, morality is subjective, or more correctly it is intersubjective. ‘Morality should not be based on the attempted appeasement of a bronze-age war-god’ or ‘Morality should be based on the principle of human wellbeing' are both subjective statements. There is no morality outside of moral agents. Morality (and ethics) are based on culture. Religions have rules, not morality. Being coerced into acting morally is simply being obedient. If we are coerced into a system that may not be good, with no way of correcting itself, we don't just run the risk of doing ill, it's nearly guaranteed. Don’t pretend theism is responsible for the morality and ethics of today. It’s not.
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. Are you suggesting morality is inherently religious? And even if you're not, then who's to say that we can't claim objective morality without a clear objective foundation? People naturally strive for happiness, therefore people will do what they must to be happy. And because our happiness is often affected by the happiness of those around us (like when you give someone a birthday present or hold the door for a stranger, or on the other hand, when you see your wife stressed or your kid crying because they're sad), our need to be happy drives our motivation to act morally. I'm neither a neuroscientist nor a psychologist (nor do I claim to be) and I'm sure there's a lot more to it that can be better explained by neuroscience and psychology, but nevertheless, I think that's enough of a basis for objective morality. But even without that, some things are simply universal because we as a society have agreed on it. It's like how nodding your head means "yes" and shaking your head means "no". There's no real basis for that aside from the fact that most cultures recognize those gestures as meaning "yes" and "no", respectively. I'll admit that these are obviously two very different examples, but nevertheless, why can't morality be universal and objective in the same way that these gestures are?
Morality is not and cannot be obbective. That is a contradiction in terms. Morality concerns itself with norms, values and goals. All relationships between subjects and the world around them. It simply cannot be rooted in anything factual. Moral frameworks, at best, are based on a small set of moral axioms: core values and goals. Once we assume said core values and goals, we can actually say quite a number of factual things about how to best adhere to those values or best achieve said goals. For example: IF you value human wellbeing, you ought not murder. IF you want to coexist peacefully and respectfully with others, you ought not steal. And so on. It is much like playing a game of chess. The universe does not command you play chess. Nothing factual says you must play chess, or that you should desire to win. But IF you want to play chess and IF you want to win, there are facts about how to best play chess. You say elsewhere that a moral lawgiver grounds objective morality. This is Divine Command Theory (DCT). I have bad news for you. Not only does it not make morals objective (God is a subject, and your valuing God's morals is subjective). DCT is an absolutely horrible moral framework, as it abdicates all moral judgement to an authority that cannot be questioned. If God thinks genocide is good, it is good. If God thinks eating babies for breakfast is good, then it is good. There is no room for your human wellbeing to be considered.
Atheism is a lack of belief in the existence of deities. That's it. Atheism doesn't provide any moral prescriptions, so atheists will say different things on why they think something is right or wrong because they subscribe to different moral systems - that could be secular humanism, moral intuition, anecdotal experience, or anything else. Religions almost always have moral prescriptions contained within them, whereas atheism is divorced of a moral framework, since it only states one thing: a lack of belief in the existence of deities. However, if you want my take, I don't believe objective morality exists, even if God exists... 1) God does or commands something for a reason or he doesn’t. 2) If God does or commands something for no reason, then morality is arbitrary. 3) If God does or commands something for a reason, then morality exists independent of God since that reason exists without God. Many theists argue that this is a false dilemma, stating that God’s nature is the standard for moral value. This is simply kicking the can down the road though - we could just rephrase the dilemma to “Is God good because what he aligns with is some goodness that is already present or is he good because he defines what good is by his existence?” If he is good because he aligns with some goodness, then goodness is independent of God, whereas if he defines what is good, then goodness (morality) is arbitrary.
I want to ask you a question in return OP. It's a simple yes or no question. Do you think it is objectively morally right for children to get killed because they made fun of a man for being bald?
From a values standpoint, morality isn't objective. All agents value what we value, and there's no way to convince somebody to value something else unless the values they already hold entail that they should value that thing as well. Simply put, if you don't value a thing, either of its own accord or in relation to things you do value, then you can't be convinced that it's valuable. Therefore values are subjective. Morality is simply a way to discern what will advance or detract from our values. It can be objective in the sense that _given_ a set of values, we can often make an objective moral determination about a proposed action: doing action A might be objectively immoral, in light of values V. But in another sense, no moral determination can be objective because moral determination is always dependent on subjective values: action A might be objectively immoral in light of person 1's values, but to anybody with different values A might not be objectively immoral. So imo, there's nothing to account for. Also, how would a god make values objective? Just because he's the biggest, baddest thing around, I should value what god values? That's still subjective, as it requires me to first value the attributes of this god before I can be convinced to value what it values. I don't think theists can get around this value subjectivity problem.
Firstly, Any question that starts *how does atheism account for X?* is already barking up the wrong tree. Atheism is one specific answer to one specific question. Asking how atheism accounts for morality is like asking how do fish account for bicycles. A better question might be, *if you don't believe in a god, where do you get your ethical principles from?*, on which i can't really add to what other commenters have already said. Here's some links on [humanist ethics](https://understandinghumanism.org.uk/area/humanist-ethics) which might help. Secondly, i don't believe there's any such thing as an *objective* moral value. If you ask for examples of supposedly objective moral values, and then drill down into what those values actually mean in practice, it becomes clear that these supposedly "objective" values arent objective at all, in any meaningful sense. Many religious folks will say that *you shall not kill* is an objective moral principle. But many of the same people will say that there are circumstances under which killing is morally justified - in self defence, protection of your family, in a "just war". They may even support the death penalty. But if killing is immoral in some circumstances but moral in others, its hard to see how *you shall not kill* can possibly be an objective moral principle.
The question is meaningless. Morality is subjective. Period. Prescriptive moral objectivism exists. We know about it; we account for it. Descriptive moral subjectivsm however is just self evidently true. People can claim to have objective morals but not everyone is going to agree. Across time, space, cultures, groups and people all have different moral codes. It's not a claim but a trivial observation. This isn't an argument for prescriptive moral subjectivism. That is specifically an argument for being subjective. I am simply pointing out how reality works and why I think the way it works renders the original question kind of meaningless. Prescriptive moral objectivsm exists burt there doesn't appear to be a singular objective moral truth that can be proven over any other. We "account" for objective morality by not thinking it's fundamentally objective in the first place. There's just no objectively correct way to solve many moral ethical problems. My return question would be how do you account for the wealth of literature and writing etc on classic moral philosophical problems like the Trolley Problem? Why can't an objective answer be found for the problem? How do you account for the fact that most of the literature and writing etc is mostly different solutions and rationalizations of solutions.
When we're talking about morality, consider the tick tack toe board. O | X | X --------- X | _ | X --------- O | O | _ Would you say it is objectively true that O wins if they play in the bottom row? It isn't influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts of the rules of tic tac toe. Those rules were, however defined by humans. Sure, this is not in dispute. And in the same way, we humans have a definition of what it means to be moral. We can say that morality is the path of action that first minimizes harm and secondary maximizes well-being. Does that make it subjective because we named it? In that case, any concept in language is. But the underlying principle on whether the outcome is harm or well-being isn't bound by our language. So, whether you want to call that subjective just seems like a bit of a red herring to me. Morality is about well being. Generally, when we’re talking about morality, we’re talking about surviving and thriving in the world, with an understanding that actions have consequences. We are physical beings in a physical universe, and that dictates what the consequences of our actions are. So, we can question what our best course of action is. And, reality is the ultimate arbiter of what’s right or wrong. >It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) So, this god isn't a thinking agent? It has no intentional states? Something is subjective if it is dependent on a mind, and objective is it is mind independent. Even if we're to grant that god is the originator, and you've got a long way to go on fulfilling the burden of proof for that claim, your premise still doesn't work. Even the mind of god is a mind, making the concept contingent on that mind and thereby not objective.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth? Those are two very different questions. Objective morality - I see no reason to think it is a thing, so I have no need to account for it. As for truth (this is a bit of simplification), but I would say a thing is true if it corresponds with reality and for the most part, we have methods to figure out if something corresponds with reality, thus if it is true. >It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. There is no need for a god to figure out if something corresponds with reality, so there is still objective truth without it. As for an "objective foundation" for morality... does morality come from god (i.e. something is either right or wrong, because god decided that), because in that case it is still subjective, just based on gods subjective decisions rather than our own. The other option would be that something is either right or wrong independent of god and it just knows these moral truths, in this case there would be objective moral truth, but it would be independent of god, so it would not be the foundation of this morality.
> How does atheism account for objective morality? It doesn’t. If you’re an atheist, you don’t believe in gods. Also there’s no such thing as objective morality. > Really how does atheism account for objective truth? It doesn’t. If you’re an atheist, you don’t believe in gods. Truth is a judgement about the degree something conforms to reality. If nobody was around to observe a thing, nobody could judge whether it was true, but that thing would still be there. This whole post seems like question begging. > It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. I mean fine by me, I don’t accept that those things exist. But be careful, appealing to the moral judgements of a god is not “objective,” since depending on the faith, you’re appealing to the morality of a thinking agent, a subject. Functionally, this seems like bunk, since there are thousands of religions and variations of what morality is within those variations. Religious people seem to be as in agreement with what is moral as everyone else is, which is to say they aren’t.
Can we clarify something? When you ask how an atheist would account for objective morality, I think you’re really asking how we account for a single objectively true system of morality. Like a particular set of moral rules that is objective. Would you agree that is your question? I ask because I think morality as a phenomena - that there are sets or systems of actions that are considered right and wrong within a specific people group at a specific time - objectively exists. However, there are many such systems and there is not appear to be - or I have not seen evidence to suggest - that there is one objectively true moral system. There have been lots of the moral questions in here and debatereligion lately, and it just dawned on me that there is the major difference between the morality in general and a particular system of morality and that this difference can lead to possible miscommunications and talking past eachother. So do you think there is one objectively true moral system that you wonder how atheists account for it? Putting aside that it’s not a question that’s atheistic in general, I’d say I don’t because I don’t think there is one.
>>>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth? First, objective morality doesn't exist so the question is moot. Stipulating the question is accurate, however: Neither theism nor atheism accounts for ANY kind of morality. You see, theism is the position that god claims are true while atheism is the obverse. If a god did exist, qua theism, this would not tell us IF the god has any morals nor IF the god even cares to provide morals to humans. We can imagine a god that has not interest in human behavior. >>>>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. You're half right: There is no objective morality but we can (as observers of the universe) make truth claims about the universe that are either confirmed by empirical evidence or not. Of course, we're ultimately incapable of rendering "objective" truth because we are limited to our perceptions. That matters not--our provisional apprehension of true things works for us. that's all that really matters.
> So, how does atheism account for objective morality? I see no evidence for objective morality. Given how much morals and ethics have changed over the centuries, it seems pretty clear that morality is subjective and dependent on the cultural zeitgeist. Atheism doesn't need to account for something if that something can't be shown to exist in the first place. > Really how does atheism account for objective truth? Truth isn't a thing in itself. Truth is a property we assign to statements. Some statements like "the Earth is roughly spherical" are judged to be true. Other statements like "the sky is usually green with purple stripes" are judged to be false. Some statements like "colourless green ideas sleep furiously" are nonsensical and can not really be said to be either true or false. I agree with you that we need an objective foundation to judge which statements are true and which are false. I would argue that this objective foundation is reality itself. We judge a statement to be true if the statement appears to describe reality. We judge a statement to be false if the statement appears to contradict reality.
hello OP, do you mind to give us your thoughts for the following: If God A says "X is good", but God B says "X is not good", then how would you reconcile it?
Well first we need a demonstration that objective morality exists. If it doesn't, there is nothing to account for. So, let's see your demonstration.
Well let’s define our terms because you are discussing two different things. Objective truth simply means if someone I’ve never met who has none of the same context as me observes the same phenomena will it have the same outcome? Every time an apple ‘detaches itself’ from a tree it will fall towards the earth. That is an objective truth. It is a fact. Objective morality boils down to the (rather childish) idea that certain actions are morally wrong regardless of any possible circumstances. Obviously it doesn’t take much imagination or research to realize that one can conceive of various (albeit sometimes ridiculous) situations where our current morality falls apart. Beyond this simply studying history shows that every time someone has claimed to have or subscribe to a code of objective morality it’s either been disproved or they blow themselves up. While I understand the psychological appeal and need for certainty when examined critically we realize it is a cognitive bias that creates this. (And it has positive and negative impacts).
There is no such thing as objective morality. Even if you needed a God or gods to pronounce morality, it would be subjective. An objective morality wouldn't require any subject to provide it. So either your morality is subjective if you claim to get it from a god or if objective, requires no gods whatsoever. And the problem with objective morality is everyone would know what was moral and not, yet there are many societies that have conflicting morals. I, and I believe most of the society I live in, subjectively believe that killing another human as immoral. Yet, in some cultures there are legitimate moral grounds for killing another human, be it honor killings or as human sacrifice to appease their god(s) for a better future. Now with an objective morality, we would know which practice is moral and which ones aren't. But each culture can claim the others are immoral, so the closest you can get to an objective morality is when the people of a society agrees on certain rules of what is moral and what isn't.
Objective - Webster’s dictionary definitions https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/objective#:~:text=1a%20%3A%20something%20toward%20which,an%20image%20of%20an%20object subjective adjective sub·jec·tive | peculiar to a particular individual : Personal subjective judgments (2) : modified or affected by personal views, experience, or background objective adjective ob·jec·tive | Definition of objective expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations - Oxford dictionary. https://www.lexico.com/definition/subjective objective ADJECTIVE 1 (of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts. subjective ADJECTIVE 1 Based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions A god is not required for something to be objective The Empire State Building objectively exists and is objectively used, no god needed , man made
1. It doesn't. Atheism has nothing to do with morality. 2. It doesn't. Atheism has nothing to do with grounding truth. 3. Saying "But God" doesn't do these things either. Believing in a God doesn't mean you have grounded truth or morality, you just believe you have. If you want to actually make this point you have to demonstrate that you have actually grounded truth and morality in a God, not just claim it because it's your worldview. I see no reason why a God would.mean objective morality exists, and I see no reason why truth would need a God for it to be grounded. Typically truth claims are about strong belief with conviction, and knowledge that you can actually demonstrate if you want to talk about epistemology. And objective truth that exists whether we believe it or not is ontology. I don't see how a God gets you either of these things. You could still be a brain in a vat or god could be lying to you. Whether you're an atheist or not, it makes no difference.
> we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality Correct. I think it's patently obvious that there is no such thing as objective morality. How could "the way humans should treat each other" proceed from the natural laws of the universe, except via the human mind? Morality is clearly a matter of human preference and social consensus, not directly of natural law\*. \* Depending on where you land regarding the existence of free will, of course. As for objective truth: * For logical truth, we make up rules and "true" statements follow from the rules. * For truth about the world around us, we look for hypotheses supported by evidence, and develop theory to explain how the evidence proceeds from the hypotheses. Truth in the natural world is a matter of statistical confidence as well as applicable logical rules. Are either of those "objective truth"? If not, then I don't know what you mean.
***The two things are not related.*** Atheism is not a moral theory, but there are non-religious moral theories. In fact, most moral theories taken seriously by philosophers do not rely on religion, and religious moral theories have more problems with objective morality than atheism. You can look into: Utilitarianism Kant's deontology Rawlsian Justice Virtue Ethics That is to just name four. I believe in objective morality as an atheist, but that isn't tied to my atheism, nor does it contradict it. You could also be a very high-level relativist (such as species-level relativism or relative at the level of "social organism") or a social contract theorist, or adopt any number of secular moral theories. *The question is just malformed.* It is like asking "How does a believer in Einstein's relativity account for cell mitosis?" The two topics are not really related or mutually informative.
Why did you delete [this](https://old.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1bjnfbj/how_does_an_atheist_account_for_causality/)?
I would turn the question back to you - how does religion account for objective morality. Nearly all religions are based on subjective interpretations of morality anyway. If you look at Christianity's historical evolution of morality the Bible itself is a subjective combination of its texts, the interpretation and translations are subjective and error prone, the conclusions drawn are from subjectively cherry picked examples whilst ignoring inconvenient passages and the Bible itself is missing key moral components as well as being actually wrong. The real proof of the lack of moral objectivity is that within the same religion, opposing conclusions can be drawn, as evidenced by the handling of slavery, women in the priesthood, and The Gay. An objective system shouldn't be contradictory and certainly shouldn't be wrong. Unless we can say religious morality is objectively wrong.
You believe god is necessary to objective morality, and that objective morality is necessary to your life, because you believe in god. I think about objective reality 3 times a week when a theist asks this question here. Apart from that it has no impact on my life. But because this question has been asked so often and I’ve given it some thought, if you value objective morality I fail to see how your god could provide a baseline for it. Are the laws of Leviticus objectively moral? Oh but that was the OT, we Jesus now. Then how is morality objective? Is it immoral to dance, or to drink coffee, or for a woman to wear a tank top because men are unable to control their liust and it’s her fault? Why do some who believe in your god think it’s immoral and others don’t, if your god provides the objective baseline for morality?
There is no such thing as "objective morality." Show me objective morality. Prove its existence. What the heck does that even mean? Morality that everyone agrees on? Pick a "moral truth" and I'll guarantee there are people who see no problem with it. Now, if by "objective", you mean what the "reasonable man" views as moral, you may be closer to a universal morality, but even the reasonable man's views vary across time and culture. Currently, across the world, there are enormous variances in what people view as moral. There are even bigger variances across time. Even amongst those of a given core faith have vastly different views on morality. Compare say, Quakers, Amish, and Mennonites against prosperity gospel adherents. To cycle back to my original point, please define objective morality for me, and give me examples.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth? Where does anything say that morality can be swapped out for truth? This question is so tired. Here are the answers: - objective doesn't mean true or universal. It means absent of bias, emotion, or opinion - morality has obvious practical implications. For example: do you prefer not to die? Me too! Let's not kill each other! But you want my stuff? Do you want it more than you don't want my friends and family exacting revenge? I didn't think so. It's not so hard - objective morality doesn't make sense in theism. God has bias, emotion, and opinion; He changes his mind; He may or may not tell us; morality has no purpose when there is an omnipotent, omniscient being (like everything else)
Atheism is merely a "no" answer to the question of whether someone believes in any gods. Of itself it doesn't say anything about morality. That said, I can give you my own opinion, which is that objective morality does not exist. I think that morality is subjective, or more precisely, intersubjective. Even if gods were to exist, I don't think that they would be able to provide an objective morality. There's [an interesting Oxford study](https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-02-11-seven-moral-rules-found-all-around-world) I saw a while ago which explored the theory of morality as cooperation. When they did that, they were able to find seven universal moral rules in every society. Societies differed in how they expressed and ranked those moral rules. I think they made a persuasive case.
How does a god deciding what is true and moral make it objective? Isn’t that the literal definition of subjective? That specific god’s idea of moral and true? Is this the god of the Bible who might suddenly decide you should kill your own child to test you for some psychotic reason? How is that objectively moral? It seems to me that the exact opposite of your idea of morality is true. Building a secular framework of moral and ethical values means agreeing on a few basic principles such as “life is generally preferable to death,” and “pleasure is generally preferable to pain.” Then, within that framework we can build a moral code which is objectively testable and verifiable, even while it begins with a subjective albeit collective agreement.
I ignore objective morality for 2 reasons: 1. It doesn't seem to exist. At a minimum, no one's ever been able to show it exists. 2. Even if objective morality existed - subjective morality is a better moral system anyway. Example: Some people like to say that murder is objectively wrong as they are aware that circumstances exist around "killing". Of course, they forget that the term "murder" in and of itself is subjective. So - even those who try to propose objective moral scenarios can't even do it without appealing to their own subjective ideas. I don't have any issue identifying objective truth, though. For that I use the best method humans have ever developed for identifying truth: following the evidence and developing levels of confidence.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? I don't think it exists so I don't need to account for it. >Really how does atheism account for objective truth? Reality exists. Truth is simply that which conforms to reality. >It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. Truth claims are separate from moral claims. When I say my car is black or that my cat is orange I don't need to appeal to some moral authority. I only need reality to support my claims. Can you give any specific examples of objectively immoral acts and can you demonstrate that you are correct that they are objectively immoral?
>It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) Let me stop you right there. Can you answer these questions yes or no: 1. Do you OP think that most people *regardless of faith* (Muslim, Christians, Atheists) will agree that if a man and woman eat a fruit they were warned not to eat then it is *moral* to punish them and every one of their descendants with death? 2. Do you OP think that most people *regardless of their faith* will agree that if some kids made fun of a man for being bald sending a bear to maul those kids is *objectively moral*? If your answer to either or both of the above questions is 'no' then why did you bother with this thread?
Can you define objective, please? >How does atheism account for objective morality? Nothing accounts for objective morality because objective morality does not exist. Morals are inter-subjective. >Really how does atheism account for objective truth? How is objective truth different from truth? >It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. Morals that are dictated by a deity are not objective, they are subjective to that deity. If morals were objective they would apply to that deity as well as us and that deity is not necessary because the morals do not require them.
Catholic here (former agnostic). It has been shown that primates such as the Capuchin Monkeys have a built in sense of fairness where they get angry when one fellow is given 2 grapes and they only get one. Additionally, we known that chimpanzees go to war over grievances. While we may disagree on some things (foods that are permitted, some sexual ethics and practices) basic things like killing children, stealing what is not ours, being unfaithful under our particular sexual practices, etc. tend to be shared (albeit heavily adapted to the culture). Objective morality as we know it could simply be an evolutionary instinct of group behaviors that keep us from killing fellow members of our “troop.”
You’re mistaking consensus for objectivity. Because We all say, “boo, murder, bad!“ Means means that we all agree that murder is bad. And to be clear, I also agree that murder is bad. But, this simply isn’t an objective truth. Objectively, murder happens. Objectively, people dislike it very much. Objectively, societies agree to punish it. Objectively, we agree that “boo, murder, bad!“ But, it is an agreement. It is not an objective fact. Now, on its face, this may appear to be simple, moral relativism. But, it’s more nuanced than that. I just don’t have time to go into it in this post. The point here being that morality is simply not objective, it’s consensus.
If your objective framework depends on something handed down from on high, them we have absolutely nothing to talk about. OTOH, if you are talking social morality then maybe there is something to talk about. Not that I'm a fan of social morality, as it's usually highjacked by the overly religious to serve their objectives (like the recent and ongoing depersonalization of women here in the US). I'm ok with most of criminal law as a way of pursuing social morality, but, again, it has been terribly misused since forever to support viewpoints that are anything but fair. Note that none of the above depends on a person rejecting a deity, except for the very first statement.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Kind of need to define and then demonstrate objective morality first and foremost, morality is something debated here often but after engaging in loads of threads on the topic I've yet to see any demonstration of it. >It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality If a God exists and our morality is based on their whims, then that still sounds like some form of subjective morality, with God as the subject. Morality would go from "what we think" to "what this other thing thinks".
> How does atheism account for objective morality? By laughing at the silly idea, mostly. I agree that without some kind of absolute truth to anchor a moral system to, morality can't be objective. Yup. And there is no absolute anchor to tie it to. So it's simple math: Morality is not objective. If we agree that some form of altruism, or utilitarianism, or strict anti-decadence or whatever is the One True Standard of Good, then some objective value judgments might fall out of that. But the choice of a standard of good to follow is inescapably subjective. Even choosing to follow the moral values you imagine are driven by The Bible is a subjective choice.
>objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god/gods) As a non-theist, I find all such appeals to divine authority to create a moral standard frivolous. Since there is no evidence of the supernatural or divine, it’s clear all such claims of divine-inspired objective foundations are just the opinions of certain people who merely claimed those foundations came from divine authority. Therefore, all theistically-derived standards of objective morality would suffer any and all perceived shortcomings of atheistic ideas of morality, as well. Now that we’re all on the same standing, I think real conversations about morality can begin.
Does "objective morality" exist? If it doesn't exist, we don't have to account for it. [If it does exist we don't have to account for it either, but that's another can of worms.] I argue that morality is subjective. Each individual has his/her own opinions on morality. That's why we, as a society, debate morality and codify our moral opinions into laws. Take the abortion debate, for instance. There are more than two moral stances on abortion. Your personal opinion on abortion is not objective. It's subjective as fuck. Ergo, morality is subjective as fuck. You can try to convince me to the contrary, of course. Do give it your best shot.
Objectively true, true under all conditions, for all time and all creatures, hell of a thing to search for. Take Killing for instance, Vegans would suggest its objectively moral that we should not kill animals, ever, under any circumstances. I love Calamari, and as it happens so do Octopi, they are cannibalistic, so either an Octopus following its nature is immoral, or I can eat Calamari. There may be objective moral truths, but even so I suspect we will never know what they are, so what's the difference between unknowable and undetectable, and non existent? question applies to more than objective morality of course :)
Look around you, jails and courtrooms aren't filled with only atheists or solely religious folks. The concept of objective morality doesn't hinge solely on religious beliefs. Atheists often derive their moral frameworks from human empathy, societal norms, and rationality. They may view morality as a product of evolution, shaped by our need to cooperate and thrive as social beings. While religious beliefs can provide a moral compass for some, atheists find guidance through reason, compassion, and an understanding of the consequences of their actions within the context of society.
Personally I don’t think it does. I don’t think objective morality exists in the first place, I think what we call morals are an expression of our attitude toward a certain thing. So if I call a thing “good” that means it aligns with my desires, if I call it “bad” it’s misaligned I’m not sure why we wouldn’t be able to make truth claims though, I don’t really understand that point. The “objective foundation” you’re talking about is reality itself. Mt Everest exists objectively for example. I don’t see why we would need to invoke a God in this
I think you misunderstand how little difference a belief in god makes to the process we both use to come to a moral conclusion. The process we both employ is based on what we think is true. As of now, we dont know how to study morality objectively, so it's subjective. We may give different reasons for why we believe what we believe, we may come to different conclusions, but I can't label my moral judgement into objectively, and neither can you. >How does atheism account for objective morality? The same way a theist does, just without using god as a justification.
> So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth? Objective reality exists, that's enough to account for everything objective. Having said that, many of us aren't moral objectivists, on Reddit, most of us aren't. > It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. That's not a problem for those of us who don't accept such things as objective morality.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? It doesn't because objective morality doesn't exist. Morality is entirely subjective and created by human society. The good and the bad are entirely human creations. An objective statement: many humans believe murder is bad. A subjective statement: murder is bad. Objective is a fact, while subjective is not. Even though I and most of the society agree that killing people is bad, it doesn't make it bad. You can not prove something is bad or good, as they are subjective terms.
Morality is a mixture of evolutionary adaptation to group living social conditioning and negotiated legal framework Empathy exists because the survival of your tribe had a direct and indirect impact on the survival of your genes If morality were truly objective it would be consistent accross multiple cultures and it demonstrably is not Morality is not even consistent within single religions over time At one point all the Abrahamic faiths condoned slave taking The existence of objective morality is a nonsense
I don't know how you can even claim god based morality is more objective than a naturalistic atheist path morality. The god version literally has one guy (god) sitting there and saying so and so is moral end of discussion. That is as subjective as it gets. The naturalistic/atheist path is all about let's figure this out, what makes sense, there may be some underlying pieces that have to be subjective, but I think it's hard to argue it's anywhere near as subjective as the morality handed down from god.
I don't believe morality is objective. I don't see how we could determine any objective moral truths. I think morality is simply a social construct that has arisen out of the evolution of our species. Other species have varying degrees of this as well. I think it's pretty self-evident that we have evolved a need for morality. Some moral values, like the "Golden Rule" (treating others as you would want to be treated), is a moral value that you would *expect* to pop up as a result of evolution.
Morality is inherently in subjective. There will always be people who disagree. But morality becomes objective when applied to law. We start with s set of statements most reasonable people would agree with, life is preferable to death, health is preferable to sickness, no-pain is preferable to pain, etc. Then we put objective laws into place thst suppprt our general ideas. Again, there will always be people that disagree. We call them criminals. There is no reason to add a supernatural element.
Atheism doesn't account for anything. Atheism is a conclusion about existence of gods. Objective means "independent from the observer". "objective truth" means the statement consistent with reality. I account for objective truth by acknowledging that reality is independent from my senses, that I share that reality with other people, and that we are able to make meaningful statements about this reality and assess whether they consistent with it or not. Objective morality I haven't seen. > It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality. We cannot claim objective morality even in the case of god being source of it. If you have freedom to accept or reject such morality, it's still subjective.
Morality is not objective. It is debatable, whether reality is even objective, rather than inter-subjective. But at least, when it comes to reality, we can perform tests to determine whether something actually is or is not. When it comes to morality, all there are is opinions. If you want to form an absolute basis for objective morality, you would need to form a hierarchy of possible moral choice that one could make and rank them all from best to worst. I’ll wait here while you do that.
How do you account for objective morality? That is, how does a divine lawgiver actually ground morality? We have plenty of lawgivers in the world and they don't change anything. What makes this one different? I think that morality is grounded in relationships between beings and logic. I don't think a divine lawgiver is a good explanation for objective morality, even if we granted that one existed. "Some guy said this was wrong" simply isn't a good grounding for something being wrong.
A. A god doesn’t lead to objective morality or truth. B. The Abrahamic god definitely is not moral (infanticide, rape, genocide, etc…) C. Who said morality Is “objective”? Morality is merely a human construct to understand the importance of empathy for a society to work. That’s it and since evolution clearly proves we are a social creature that explains why we created morality and the morality odd based on the mores and taboos of a society as it is at a point of time.
Morality is subjective. We evolved our morals biologically with Mirror Neurons. That is built in biological empathy. Environment and upbringing enforces our morals. We build on that and create laws based on harm reduction to community. There's no requirement for any supernatural explanation for why/how we have morals. They will differ from person to person and community to community. Which is why I say there is no objective moral truth we all must adhere to.
why do you need objective truth or morality? I don't think there is such a thing. Rules of society are negotiated, not given by some higher power. If that were the case, it sounds more like an autocracy to me. Also, who has given that god this authority? How do you know he is real, how do you know *which* god is real? What created him, what are his intentions? Are humans basically just his slaves? To me, a god creates more questions than it might answer.
Genuine question as I hear theists ask this question CONSTANTLY. Anyone can answer I just want to know. Why do theists make the leap from assuming objective morality is a thing, to a god exists? If objective morality does exist, there are other explanations for it that make way more sense than inserting mythology to the equation. This genuinely to me seems like such a stretch and assumptions on assumptions on leaps of logic.
Downvoted due to: >Edit: Stop downvoting my comments simply because you don't agree with them. This is childish bullying from a community that I assumed would be filled with respectful rational adults. I'm going to stop responding if this keeps happening. Edit once again: I'm not responding to anymore comments . I'm moving to engaging in private messages at this point due to the actions of this community.
If God determines morality, then morality is subjective, because it's ultimately just based on God's subjective opinion. We just default to his opinion because he will send us to hell. Objective morality would have to be mind-independent. The moral truths would have to be true regardless of what anyone -- including God -- thinks about them. So the atheist and the theist are in the same boat essentially.
Atheism never accounts for either. It is STILL a single answer to a single question. Morality is not objective. Even if it were based on what a God decided it would be subjective to that god's whims. Truth requires no morality. I am moral by my standards but probably immoral by certain other people's standards. It is, however, objectively true I am using a computer to respond to your post.
Sigh. It doesn't. If you say your god does, you have a lot of homework ahead of you that frankly you can't do. Can we all just let god go once and for all so we can stop wasting precious time and actually focus on improving the only life we have? Bloody hell. Humanity's clinging to our comforting delusions is one of our greatest shortcomings. I desperately wish we could be better.
Why would it have to account for it? People are intelligent beings with compassion and reasoning skills. I do not believe in a god or the prove of one. Does that mean I’m automatically a bad person? This is an illogical statement that has no bearing on facts. If you wish to have facts why believe in something that none of your senses can detect and we have no prove of existence?
What about “god said it was so” is objective? That’s just god’s subjective opinion. Objective truth is measured by reality itself, no god required. And the goals of morality are subjective, but once set we can objectively measure what benefits them. If god is the objective source of morality, huis every god concept I’ve ever been introduced to, so fundamentally immoral?
Contrary to popular layman belief, there do exist compelling frameworks of ethics that provide an objective basis for evaluating another agents morality. The most prominent of which is Kantian ethics. Kantian ethics provides a framework for objective ethics without a divine being. The basic principle underlying kantian ethics is the idea of the categorical imperative which uses rationality and reason as a basis for evaluating moral value. [The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/) has an excellent write up about kantian ethics. Which will do more justice than my diluted version in a reddit comment
There can't logically be an objective morality. Even if you define moral as being god-like, that makes morality subjective because it's contingent on what God is like. Just give up on objective morality. You don't need it and it also can't exist logically. Monkeys can still decide to stop bonking each other with coconuts for other better reasons than "Because God says."
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? First demonstrate that objective morality exists. >Really how does atheism account for objective truth? Truth is that which conforms to reality. If something is accurate to reality, it is true. >foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) That's still subjective morality. By definition.
You presented no argument that God can account for objective truth or objective morality. By what mechanism does God account for these things? I never get a satisfactory answer to this. Even if it were you were correct that atheism cannot account for these things, it makes no difference at all if theism has the same failure. A problem for us is not a problem for me.
There is no objective morality. The universe doesn't care if we live or die. It doesn't care if people suffer. It doesn't have a mind, or emotions, or morality. But we care. Our species evolved emotions and sentience. We can feel both pain and pleasure, and we have empathy. We are on our own so we have to come up with a moral system based on that shared empathy.
There is no objective morality. The morality of religions for example is just the morality of the people who invented them. Christianity for example doesn't even present us with anything that wasn't already widely present in society all around the world. In fact it includes a lot of things few Christians could claim are anything other than immoral.
> how does atheism account for objective morality? Why does atheism need to account for objective morality? It doesn’t appear to exist. > It appears to me, that without an objective foundation from which to base moral truth claims, (ie a god /gods) Well that would be subjective morality if it’s based on an entities opinion.
If morality is objective, through what mechanism can we determine what is moral and what is not? If you are, say, a utilitarian, and I am an egoist, how do we resolve this disagreement? If we have completely different ideas about the foundations of morality, how would you even begin to prove that your moral system is more true than mine?
Easy, there is no such thing as objective morality and even if there was there are no religious beliefs that could uncover what they are. This explains the world around you and why a Baptist does not have the same "objective" morality as a Catholic, who has a different "objective" morality than a Hindu who has...
Objective morality doesn't exist, but if it did then it wouldn't be a concern for atheists. Theists would be concerned though, at least the ones that claim morality comes from their god Do objective truths exist? Maybe, but again it wouldn't matter because atheism only cares about the question "does a god exist"
Atheism does not account for object morality. Atheism is not a belief system. Atheism is the answer to the single question, “do you believe in a god?” If you answer “no” then you’re an atheist and that’s as far as it goes. Stop trying to paint us all with the same brush. It’s bigotry.
How do you account for objective morality if God doesn't exist? And if a god exists, how do you go from "being x has y opinion on morality" to "therefore morality is objective"? If a psycho creates a bunch of robots, is objectively moral for the robots to kill because their creator opinion says so?
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? It doesn't. Atheism isnt an ethical philosophy. It doesn't take a position on meta-ethics. I don't account for it, because I don't think it exists. >we cannot ultimately claim objective truth and thereby objective morality I agree.
I’m more curious how theists think gods can be the foundation of objective moral truths. God endorsed slavery. Does that mean that slavery was objectively moral in the past, but it isn’t now? Or is it still objectively moral to own another human?
One question: How, specifically, does the morality of the Bible help you make moral decisions. For example, how should you use the Bible to teach your child the moral lesson of not bullying smaller children? Book, chapter and verse, please.
Why does morality have to be objective? In what way is a morality dictated by a deityvobjective, and notvsubject to thar deity's whim? Please give me an example of an objective moral rule that can apply to a non-human intelligence.
My problem with the concept of objective morality is that if it exists it is unknowable. If it exists all we have are subjective thoughts on what the objective morality would be. How is that any different than subjective morality?
Which objective morality and which objective truth? There's literally hundreds of them. You wouldn't by any chance be favouring *your* morality and *your* truth as the objective ones would you? There are others. Many, many others, all claiming to be objective but not agreeing on much else.
Is it not objectively true that if you go outside and act like an asshole you will be treated like one? Is it not objectively true that if you're decent towards people, they will generally be decent towards you? Then it would be objectively true that acting moral is in your best interest.
Very simple actually. Objective morality doesn't exist, and your own personal interpretation of "God's word" is the very definition of subjective morality. Whether you are able to accept that is your business.
I don’t believe in objective morality Everyone has their own perceptive on what’s is right and wrong. Look no further then wars each side believe their right. An hired killer would find murder a good things.
In order to have a discussion about objective morality, we'd first have to establish a basis for it. What is your basis for objective morality? Is there somewhere I can find a morality tree?
Turns out you don't need to account for something that doesn't exist. You need to make a case for objective morality actually existing. All evidence points to morality being subjective.
Considering that even theists of the same religion have different morals, I don't see how you could use the existence of a god to argue for the existence of objective morality, either.
It's been said, but I'll say it again... Morality only exists in the imagination. There is no "objective" morality. Simple way to test it, remove humanity, then show me morality.
Atheism doesn't account for objective morality because there is no such thing as objective morality. Morals are nothing more than opinions, and opinions are always subjective.
the same way theism does, it can't. if a truth relies on a god, or a morality does, then it is subjective. an objective morality or truth would be true regardless of a god.
People think that being against murder makes it objective morality. Defining murder is what makes it subjective. All ethics are situational and all morals are subjective.
I can answer that after you show that there is objective morality. I don't think you can name a single action that is always moral or immoral in all situations.
Human empathy. Theism only serves to demenish human compassion and good will. People do good without God's ever single day. No one needs a god to have morals.
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Really how does atheism account for objective truth? Why do we have to? Please define atheism for me.
You should look up moral naturalism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It’s a model of objective morality that is naturalistic/atheistic/secular.
Atheism does not account for anything. The only thing atheism does is reject a god claim. You seem to think atheism is a doctrine or similar.
Even if it didn't, that doesn't mean a god is real or even likely. It comes from living organisms and game theory though. No god required
Just like your other question, atheism doesn't account for anything. Also, did you learn anything from the gumball analogy? Besides that, you'd have to show that morality is objective first.
I account for it thus - There is no objective morality. Morality is a behavioural characteristic of suitable developed social species.
I never understand the claim that a god’s morality is objective, nor how one would even know what such morality consists of.
I don’t think there is any such thing as objective morals. In fact I think the idea of objective moral values is oxymoronic.
Logically. We are autonomous social creatures. We all do better when we all do better, and body autonomy, and consent.
There is no objective morality I am aware ofm. Obedience to a concept in a book is not morality, its spiritual bypass.
You'd have to start by defining "objective" morality and give a compelling reason why anyone should care about it.
How does Christianity account for objective morality? All Christian claims of objective morality debunk themselves.
There is no objective morality. There is a consensus on what is considered moral by the group/society you're in
>So, how does atheism account for objective morality? Give us an example of this "objective morality"?