I don't like either idea and can't vote for either.
Some things are objective and there is no logical way to prove it is not. The most obvious example is harming someone else without any reason - you cannot justify that no matter how hard you try. In some extreme cases you can see the reason, but you cannot say the action is not evil. And sorry, but I think claiming everything is subjective in such cases is simply a nice way of dealing with your own conscience when there is nothing to justify you.
Evil is not objective, so someone
could say the action is not evil. Evil is subject to opinion and culture. What some people may consider evil, I may not and vice versa. Someone may consider it perfectly right to kill an evil person to stop them doing more harm. I don't see that as objectively right or wrong, regardless of my own beliefs on the matter.
And I don't say this to deal with my own conscience on the matter, because I am not trying to justify my own actions. I am opposed to violence and never harm anyone for any reason. These are my own morals, and society's morals, but I don't believe they are firmly objective. That doesn't mean I treat them any less rigidly though.
Well I think this is a very simple case:
- someone is harmed
- you gain nothing, or have no reason of any kind, even a poor one (revenge/self-defence/whatever)
...yet you do it on purpose. I think this is a situation where it's always 100% wrong and evil, and you cannot justify it or claim it's subjective. Even if you don't take any emotional aspects into account and look in a purely cold, rational way, there is no possible way you can find this acceptable.
I'd find just a handful of additional cases where I believe there is no question they're wrong and unacceptable, but I think this one is by far the simplest and impossible to justify.
You can't justify it objectively though. I don't think there's any point where it becomes objective, no matter how obvious it feels to us as civilized people.
Looking at it in a purely cold and rational way, I can't find any point where morals are objective. Morality is right vs wrong, but these are not quantifiable in this context. This isn't like 1 + 3 = 4. This is a judgement call of whether something is right to do.
If a caveman kills another caveman just because he felt like it, and has no repercussions whatsoever, why is it objectively wrong? He didn't lose anything from it. He probably doesn't feel bad about it. He didn't necessarily gain anything from it. Objectively, this was probably a fairly neutral decision to him, maybe even positive if he decided to feast upon the carcass, or steal his woman.
And yet in our modern society it's morally wrong to kill. Why? Because we've been raised emotionally to care about others, and feel bad when we do harm, to understand that if we treat others well, then they will treat us well in return, because our society has an agreed upon punishment for harming others, because it is of no gain for us, etc.
These are all completely logical and reasonable arguments for not harming others, and thus most of us good people don't. But I still don't believe these are objective. Some people seem to think that if we allow morals to be thought of subjectively, then society will slip, but our morals don't need to be technically objective to be regarded highly important in society. This is why society functions. Because we have been raised as (relatively) intelligent and emotional people to care about more than just ourselves. My morals are ingrained in me from my upbringing and the culture I live in, and thus I treat them with great importance, and I don't break the law. I don't allow myself to justify wrongdoing, because I believe that society's morals are logically the right thing to do, and emotionally I feel they're the right thing to do, even if not objective.
Notice that I don't consider logical to be the same as objective. Logic is about weighing pros vs cons and deciding what we feel is the most beneficial to either us, or others. This is just as good at keeping my own moral decisions firmly planted as anything set in stone. But is it objective? Not really.
Another ramble that I hope makes some sense.