Is morality objective?

[SteveH]

This came up on the 'The next PM' thread.
I think it is. In broad outline (not in detail), and with some notable but temporary exceptions, all societies have agreed on the basics: random violence, theft, deceit, cruelty, parasitism, etc. are wrong; kindness, peaceableness, honesty, etc. are right. That broad agreement argues for its objective nature. A society which practised Ayn Rand's ethics - praising selfishness and condemning altruism - would not survive long; nor would a society that praised theft and condemned honesty. It is probably, therefore, a matter of natuurall selection.
The ethical system which makes most sense is rule-utilitarianism: regarding those acts as good which tend to maximise happiness. All the hypothetical scenarios I've ever read attempting to disprove it can be condemned on specifically rule-utilitarian grounds:if we were all obliged to sacrifice our lives to save two otherlives of greater societal value than ours by donating our kidneys, we would all be living in fear. (Note that this only works with rule-utilitarianism, not the act version.
If moraliy is subjective, you can have no objection to my beating you up until you hand over your money, or raping your wife. The fact that some societies have unnexessary hang-ups, such as Western society's about homosexual acts, does not argue against the objectivity of basic moral principles.
As for fairness, which was mentioned specifically, that is certainly objective, because it's simple maths. If I cut myself a bigger slice of cake than anyone else, that's unfair. There may be types of unfairness we are prepared to tolerate, but that doesn't alter the fact.

[Gordon]

No: it's subjective, being essentially what people think.

That there can be instances where there is a consensus of subjective opinion in particular circumstances, albeit these vary in line with social and cultural factors, so that the moral zeitgeist is both variable at any point in time and also changes over time, is at best axiomatic and not objective.

There seem to be no objective moral principles floating around waiting to be adopted - so far as I can see all moral statements are the subjective opinions of people and that there can be general agreement among a subset of people doesn't mean what those people agree on is 'objective' (as in being independent of their subjective opinion).

[Gordon]

If moraliy is subjective, you can have no objection to my beating you up until you hand over your money, or raping your wife.

What you say here reads like a classic argumentum ad consequentiam fallacy.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Steve

I posted this on the Next PM thread but makes more sense to discuss it here:

In terms of taxation and public spending? I don't see how you can argue or provide evidence of an objective morality or objective fairness. Morality and perceptions of fairness have an emotional component and people's emotions have a genetic component, which influences how they are predisposed to react.

“Emotions are not only about how feel about the world, but how our brains influence our perception of it. As our genes influence how we literally see the positive and negative aspects of our world more clearly, we may come to believe the world has more rewards or threats."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201505/how-do-your-genes-influence-levels-emotional-sensitivity

For example, some people are predisposed to feel more discomfort/ alarm/ unsafe when contemplating change or uncertainty and prefer tradition and hierarchy and order and certainty, whereas others are predisposed to feeling suffocated by tradition, hierarchy and order and feel energised at the prospect of change or uncertainty. This then affects how they feel about issues such as taxation, inflation, spending, saving, wealth distribution, career choices, job security, education, wages, innovation, entrepreneurship, their appetite for risk, tax planning etc

When faced with the risk that a tax-planning scheme that seemingly complies with tax law but also allows tax savings that might in the future be challenged/ disallowed by HMRC, some people are willing to take the risk and utilise the scheme and see what happens and some people prefer certainty and decide not to use that tax-planning scheme. Knowing that there are possibilities of appeal and testing the law to ascertain what judges interpret as Parliament's intention when drafting the tax legislation, some people consider it is worth pursuing. Until HMRC challenge a scheme and it goes through the courts / tribunals it is not always clear whether Parliament intended the tax saving to be used or not - as there might be a commercial reason to allow tax savings in that particular way.

Some people are more focused on enterprise and economy and some people are more focused on giving all their money away to help others. The amount of compassion someone feels and their subsequent actions may be linked to their genes and how pre-disposed they are to feel fear or perceive a threat.

These polymorphisms interacted with perceived threat to predict engagement in volunteer work or charitable activities and commitment to civic duty. Specifically, greater perceived threat predicted engagement in fewer charitable activities for individuals with A/A and A/G genotypes of OXTR rs53576, but not for G/G individuals. Similarly, greater perceived threat predicted lower commitment to civic duty for individuals with one or two short alleles for AVPR1a rs1, but not for individuals with only long alleles. Oxytocin, vasopressin, and their receptor genes may significantly influence prosocial behavior and may lie at the core of the caregiving behavioral system. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22457427/

So how would you determine objectively the right level of threat perception?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

As for fairness, which was mentioned specifically, that is certainly objective, because it's simple maths. If I cut myself a bigger slice of cake than anyone else, that's unfair. There may be types of unfairness we are prepared to tolerate, but that doesn't alter the fact.

If you put in more effort towards a particular enterprise in the expectation of greater reward, why would it be unfair to cut yourself a bigger slice of the cake than someone who has put in less effort towards that enterprise?

[SteveH]

What you say here reads like a classic argumentum ad consequentiam fallacy.

No, it doesn't.The consequentialist fallacy is assume that if a belief leads to good ends,it must be true, and if to bad ends it must be false, eg God must exist, because otherwise we have no hope. That, however, is not what I was saying, which is that people in fact act as though morality is oobjective.

[SteveH]

If you put in more effort towards a particular enterprise in the expectation of greater reward, why would it be unfair to cut yourself a bigger slice of the cake than someone who has put in less effort towards that enterprise?

It wouldn't - it would be fair - but I didn't say anything about effort or reward. Anyway, you are still regarding fairness as right, and unfairness as wrong.

[Gordon]

No, it doesn't.The consequentialist fallacy is assume that if a belief leads to good ends,it must be true, and if to bad ends it must be false, eg God must exist, because otherwise we have no hope. That, however, is not what I was saying, which is that people in fact act as though morality is oobjective.

They may act as if morality is objective but that doesn't make it objective: at best it makes their opinion of what is moral or immoral axiomatic.

You were arguing that:

If P ("if morality is subjective") then Q (" you can have no objection to my beating you up until you hand over your money, or raping your wife.")
Q is undesirable.
Therefore P is false.

So here you are claiming morality cannot be subjective since otherwise the consequences would be undesirable, therefore morality must be objective and not subjective - and that seems like the classic negative form of the argumentum ad consequentiam fallacy if your conclusion that morality isn't subjective, and is therefore objective, rests on this argument alone.

[ekim]

If you put in more effort towards a particular enterprise in the expectation of greater reward, why would it be unfair to cut yourself a bigger slice of the cake than someone who has put in less effort towards that enterprise?

I suspect that 'effort' is a difficult term to measure in the context of morality e.g. Mr Putin, no doubt, puts a great deal of effort into his war enterprise as did the soldier on the front line who came back with his legs blown off.  Shouldn't they at least be given an equal slice of the cake?  'Morality' is another word that needs clarifying. It's source is a Latin word meaning 'habit'.  If seen in this context it could mean 'social habit' which can arise from genetics but also from conditioning processes imposed or suggested by those who control the cutting of cake slices, something religious hierarchies and political dictatorships have become expert at.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

I suspect that 'effort' is a difficult term to measure in the context of morality e.g. Mr Putin, no doubt, puts a great deal of effort into his war enterprise as did the soldier on the front line who came back with his legs blown off.  Shouldn't they at least be given an equal slice of the cake?

Good point - yes 'effort' doesn't adequately cover the criteria that might go into a moral choice or judgement. Though maybe Putin would take his effort into consideration when deciding how much of Ukraine he wants - to the victor the spoils. 

'Morality' is another word that needs clarifying. It's source is a Latin word meaning 'habit'.  If seen in this context it could mean 'social habit' which can arise from genetics but also from conditioning processes imposed or suggested by those who control the cutting of cake slices, something religious hierarchies and political dictatorships have become expert at.

Agreed. The people in control often would prefer not to give up that control or to let others have equal control or equal say, as they are convinced that they are morally right or superior or they may just feel justified or entitled to a bigger slice of the cake. Also, once you have got used to having the bigger slice, you can become very fearful of losing some of your portion of cake, and you may act/ vote based on that fear.

[Enki]

This came up on the 'The next PM' thread.
I think it is. In broad outline (not in detail), and with some notable but temporary exceptions, all societies have agreed on the basics: random violence, theft, deceit, cruelty, parasitism, etc. are wrong; kindness, peaceableness, honesty, etc. are right. That broad agreement argues for its objective nature. A society which practised Ayn Rand's ethics - praising selfishness and condemning altruism - would not survive long; nor would a society that praised theft and condemned honesty. It is probably, therefore, a matter of natuurall selection.
The ethical system which makes most sense is rule-utilitarianism: regarding those acts as good which tend to maximise happiness. All the hypothetical scenarios I've ever read attempting to disprove it can be condemned on specifically rule-utilitarian grounds:if we were all obliged to sacrifice our lives to save two otherlives of greater societal value than ours by donating our kidneys, we would all be living in fear. (Note that this only works with rule-utilitarianism, not the act version.
If moraliy is subjective, you can have no objection to my beating you up until you hand over your money, or raping your wife. The fact that some societies have unnexessary hang-ups, such as Western society's about homosexual acts, does not argue against the objectivity of basic moral principles.
As for fairness, which was mentioned specifically, that is certainly objective, because it's simple maths. If I cut myself a bigger slice of cake than anyone else, that's unfair. There may be types of unfairness we are prepared to tolerate, but that doesn't alter the fact.

I accept that there is a 'potential' for morality, if it aids survival and flourishing. However I see this as not particularly different to any other 'potentials' such as the ability to see, the ability to breed, the ability to exhibit selfishness and a myriad of other characteristics of living things. I do not see these 'potentials' as having any outside existence in their own right and, therefore, do not regard them as objective in the sense of having an existence separate from the creatures which exhibit these characteristics.

I have a morality which I try to adhere to. For me, this is probably driven by such traits as empathy  and natural feelings of co-operation and responsibility towards others. Culture, environment, experience, upbringing, and a rational approach  superimpose upon those feelings, so that I attempt to give the most constructive outcome which would satisfy my original motivations. Thus my sense of moral wrongness/rightness depends upon my own unique characteristics wedded to the overall evolutionary group characteristics.

I generally think and feel that I am correct in my moral thoughts and decisions, because that is the way in which I have evolved to think and feel. That is not to say that I can't make immoral decisions, but it would be odd, indeed, if I went around thinking that my moral thoughts and decisions were inherently wrong.  However, if it was demonstrated to me that some particular moral thought or action of mine was wrong, then I would try to analyse why it might be wrong, and if then I was convinced of this wrongness, I would try to adjust accordingly.

My approach therefore is almost certainly one that leans towards the subjective rather than the objective.

[jeremyp]

There seem to be no objective moral principles floating around waiting to be adopted

The principle of least harm.

Was the Atlantic slave trade objectively bad or is it only bad because of our current moral zeitgeist?

[Nearly Sane]

The principle of least harm.

Was the Atlantic slave trade objectively bad or is it only bad because of our current moral zeitgeist?

In what sense is that objective?

[Gordon]

The principle of least harm.

Was the Atlantic slave trade objectively bad or is it only bad because of our current moral zeitgeist?

The latter: because any notion of 'good' or 'bad' is subjective opinion.

That the moral zeitgeist involves consensus doesn't turn that consensus into objective facts even where almost all people would agree with the consensus. That they may regard the consensus as being unquestionable or self-evident makes it axiomatic and not objective.

[Outrider]

This came up on the 'The next PM' thread.
I think it is. In broad outline (not in detail), and with some notable but temporary exceptions, all societies have agreed on the basics: random violence, theft, deceit, cruelty, parasitism, etc. are wrong; kindness, peaceableness, honesty, etc. are right. That broad agreement argues for its objective nature. A society which practised Ayn Rand's ethics - praising selfishness and condemning altruism - would not survive long; nor would a society that praised theft and condemned honesty. It is probably, therefore, a matter of natuurall selection.

You've sort of highlighted the flaw in your own argument, here - those traits that are widely extoled are effective at creating stable cultures, but that doesn't intrinsically make them good. You'd need to establish a basis for presuming that stable cultures were good in order for the building blocks to 'inherit' that goodness.

Taking this idea on, for me, shows why morality is subjective: if you were to look at a variety of Asian culture, both current and historical, and you find a tendency to espouse the idea that it's 'good' to subsume individual desires for the greater good of the community, which you can pit against a 'Western' ideal of individual freedom and liberty being the building blocks of a disparate but 'good' society. Two mutually exclusive concepts with a well-founded history of being depicted as 'good' - neither of those precludes a stable society, intrinsically, and so they have both continued and both established themselves, whilst the other traits that you mention appear to be more critical and appear in both. Presumably traits which are detrimental to stable cultures have been weeded out over time in a sort of 'social evolution'.

O.

[jeremyp]

In what sense is that objective?

The most moral action is the one that does the least harm. Admittedly, it is pretty hard to measure, but, in principle, it provides an objective framework for morality.

Would you like to comment on my question about the Atlantic slave trade?

[jeremyp]

The latter: because any notion of 'good' or 'bad' is subjective opinion.

So why do we go round cancelling slave traders?

[Gordon]

So why do we go round cancelling slave traders?

Because the moral zeitgeist nowadays, which is a subjective consensus of opinion, is that slavery is 'bad': as in being socially divisive in various ways.

[Nearly Sane]

The most moral action is the one that does the least harm. Admittedly, it is pretty hard to measure, but, in principle, it provides an objective framework for morality.

Would you like to comment on my question about the Atlantic slave trade?

You've assumed an axiom subjectively, and then said you can judge things against that axiom objectively. I would agree but it doesn't change that the axiom, and therefore everything following is subjective.


Individual cases such as the slavery one are irrelevant because of it being based on a subjective assumption. If I change the axiom subjectively to things that benefit me, slavery might well be judged as morally neutral.

[Sriram]

In fact, whether there is any such thing as 'objective reality' itself, can be questioned. Even if there is any objective reality independent of our observation and sensory processing...we will never know what it is.

[ProfessorDavey]

In fact, whether there is any such thing as 'objective reality' itself, can be questioned. Even if there is any objective reality independent of our observation and sensory processing...we will never know what it is.

Not sure these kinds of 'reality is just an illusion' arguments really cut any ice.

Many of the instruments we use to indicate phenomena aren't really based on our sensory perception at all (although we might have designed them) so it is hard to argue that the manifestation of those phenomena only exist if we are measuring them.

And on that latter point, measurements from deep space are a great example. We are 'observing' things that actually occurred billions of years ago. Can we really credibly claim that they only manifest when we observe them, given that they actually manifested billions of years before humans even existed, let alone whether or not we have the technology to observe them.

[Spud]

In fact, whether there is any such thing as 'objective reality' itself, can be questioned. Even if there is any objective reality independent of our observation and sensory processing...we will never know what it is.

We have to assume there is. Otherwise you would be checking the ground was still there every time you took a step!

[ProfessorDavey]

We have to assume there is. Otherwise you would be checking the ground was still there every time you took a step!

I think the argument is more that what be consider 'reality' is merely some kind of complex VR created by our own consciousness. The 'deep space' issue is relevant as it becomes must more difficult to argue that something we can measure now that actually happened billions of years before we existed was actually generated by our own consiousness (which didn't exist at that time).

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Because the moral zeitgeist nowadays, which is a subjective consensus of opinion, is that slavery is 'bad': as in being socially divisive in various ways.

Doesn't moral Zeitgeist just boil down to "It's bad because they say it's bad.
I
You need to establish that socially divisive is bad rather than just socially divisive.

[Nearly Sane]

Doesn't moral Zeitgeist just boil down to "It's bad because they say it's bad.
I
You need to establish that socially divisive is bad rather than just socially divisive.

No, that's for those who think morality is objective. So, on you go...