On Subjective and Objective Morality

[Liberation]

There wouldn't be such problem because we would have ceased to exist centuries ago.

Fine. Disregard "murder" and re-asses the query.

I think this doesn't change much to be honest. What I meant is that if moral standards didn't exist (or at least these two very basic examples you mentioned), humanity would be stopped by literally nothing from letting all of its worst and most destructive instincts run wild. Even if we didn't cease to exist like I said, we would probably never make it past the stone age, because the formation of society and its basic rules is what allowed men to achieve anything. And if we assume that if it wasn't from the beginning, but if morality simply started to fade somewhere later, I think it would be even worse - murder being acceptable with, for example, explosives and firearms being available... I think you can imagine.

And well, coming back to what you just said, I'm pretty certain that if child rape was acceptable, murder probably would be as well. It's fairly simple... if you learn violence in your childhood, it will most likely remain a significant part of your life. It would probably lead to a total disappearance of the ideas of "good" and "evil", and this means total chaos at best, and end of humanity at worst. Morality is what makes us unique and so powerful - it means that even if we find out something which can be extremely dangerous (nuclear weapons?...), we won't use it because even if we somehow gain a lot in the process, we know that's not the only important factor to be taken into account.

At least if the person is sane.

The stakes are now really high because at the time when a sword was the most advanced weapon, even a madman on a high position wasn't such a threat and sooner or later probably could be removed. Now morality is more important than ever because if we allow people without morality to gain access to power... Even if they're intelligent, someone with a Machiavellian approach having access to nuclear weapons... I think I don't need to elaborate too much on this.

There have been many cultures where child murder was acceptable. 

And none of them have developed or have become powerful.

[Sigz]

Why is it that survival or success is the metric for what's moral?

[Scheavo]

There wouldn't be such problem because we would have ceased to exist centuries ago.

Fine. Disregard "murder" and re-asses the query.

I think this doesn't change much to be honest. What I meant is that if moral standards didn't exist (or at least these two very basic examples you mentioned), humanity would be stopped by literally nothing from letting all of its worst and most destructive instincts run wild. Even if we didn't cease to exist like I said, we would probably never make it past the stone age, because the formation of society and its basic rules is what allowed men to achieve anything. And if we assume that if it wasn't from the beginning, but if morality simply started to fade somewhere later, I think it would be even worse - murder being acceptable with, for example, explosives and firearms being available... I think you can imagine.

And well, coming back to what you just said, I'm pretty certain that if child rape was acceptable, murder probably would be as well. It's fairly simple... if you learn violence in your childhood, it will most likely remain a significant part of your life. It would probably lead to a total disappearance of the ideas of "good" and "evil", and this means total chaos at best, and end of humanity at worst. Morality is what makes us unique and so powerful - it means that even if we find out something which can be extremely dangerous (nuclear weapons?...), we won't use it because even if we somehow gain a lot in the process, we know that's not the only important factor to be taken into account.

At least if the person is sane.

The stakes are now really high because at the time when a sword was the most advanced weapon, even a madman on a high position wasn't such a threat and sooner or later probably could be removed. Now morality is more important than ever because if we allow people without morality to gain access to power... Even if they're intelligent, someone with a Machiavellian approach having access to nuclear weapons... I think I don't need to elaborate too much on this.

There have been many cultures where child murder was acceptable. 

And none of them have developed or have become powerful.

The Spartans were a highly successful city state in ancient Greece. They killed new born babies which they deemed too weak. It's infanticide, and they did it on a social level, and this practice did not lead to the destruction of their culture.

[Omega]

There wouldn't be such problem because we would have ceased to exist centuries ago.

Fine. Disregard "murder" and re-asses the query.

I think this doesn't change much to be honest. What I meant is that if moral standards didn't exist (or at least these two very basic examples you mentioned), humanity would be stopped by literally nothing from letting all of its worst and most destructive instincts run wild. Even if we didn't cease to exist like I said, we would probably never make it past the stone age, because the formation of society and its basic rules is what allowed men to achieve anything. And if we assume that if it wasn't from the beginning, but if morality simply started to fade somewhere later, I think it would be even worse - murder being acceptable with, for example, explosives and firearms being available... I think you can imagine.

And well, coming back to what you just said, I'm pretty certain that if child rape was acceptable, murder probably would be as well. It's fairly simple... if you learn violence in your childhood, it will most likely remain a significant part of your life. It would probably lead to a total disappearance of the ideas of "good" and "evil", and this means total chaos at best, and end of humanity at worst. Morality is what makes us unique and so powerful - it means that even if we find out something which can be extremely dangerous (nuclear weapons?...), we won't use it because even if we somehow gain a lot in the process, we know that's not the only important factor to be taken into account.

At least if the person is sane.

The stakes are now really high because at the time when a sword was the most advanced weapon, even a madman on a high position wasn't such a threat and sooner or later probably could be removed. Now morality is more important than ever because if we allow people without morality to gain access to power... Even if they're intelligent, someone with a Machiavellian approach having access to nuclear weapons... I think I don't need to elaborate too much on this.

There have been many cultures where child murder was acceptable. 

And none of them have developed or have become powerful.

With all due respect, I think you are missing the main point of my question, namely that if an entire culture denies moral objectivity, all that is logically left is moral subjectivism, in which any individual's choice is neither greater nor worse than another's. The distinction between genocide and charity would be comparable to preference in colors, rendering all objections to someone else's subjective moral code arbitrarily contradictory and intellectually inconsistent. Such a worldview is not only despicable, but also nowhere to be found in practice in actuality.

[Liberation]

Why is it that survival or success is the metric for what's moral?

It's not. It's just that morality allows us to function as a society. Rules have been created just to "help" those with no morality; but rules wouldn't have a chance of functioning either if they weren't based on morality.

The Spartans were a highly successful city state in ancient Greece. They killed new born babies which they deemed too weak. It's infanticide, and they did it on a social level, and this practice did not lead to the destruction of their culture.

Yes, I know. And where are they now?

(This may seem like a naive question, but it is not.)

With all due respect, I think you are missing the main point of my question, namely that if an entire culture denies moral objectivity, all that is logically left is moral subjectivism, in which any individual's choice is neither greater nor worse than another's. The distinction between genocide and charity would be comparable to preference in colors, rendering all objections to someone else's subjective moral code arbitrarily contradictory and intellectually inconsistent. Such a worldview is not only despicable, but also nowhere to be found in practice in actuality.

Well... Yes, I understand your point, and looking at the last sentence I think we more or less agree. Just wanted to explain how I see it.

[Omega]

With all due respect, I think you are missing the main point of my question, namely that if an entire culture denies moral objectivity, all that is logically left is moral subjectivism, in which any individual's choice is neither greater nor worse than another's. The distinction between genocide and charity would be comparable to preference in colors, rendering all objections to someone else's subjective moral code arbitrarily contradictory and intellectually inconsistent. Such a worldview is not only despicable, but also nowhere to be found in practice in actuality.

Well... Yes, I understand your point, and looking at the last sentence I think we more or less agree. Just wanted to explain how I see it.
[/quote]

[Scheavo]

The Spartans were a highly successful city state in ancient Greece. They killed new born babies which they deemed too weak. It's infanticide, and they did it on a social level, and this practice did not lead to the destruction of their culture.

Yes, I know. And where are they now?

(This may seem like a naive question, but it is not.)

No culture that was around 2500 years ago is the same as it is now, what's your point? They evolved their standards, their morality changed because it's subjective, and they stopped performing infanticide. Either way, infanticide didn't bring down the Spartan civilization, time did.

[Orthogonal]

With all due respect, I think you are missing the main point of my question, namely that if an entire culture denies moral objectivity, all that is logically left is moral subjectivism, in which any individual's choice is neither greater nor worse than another's. The distinction between genocide and charity would be comparable to preference in colors, rendering all objections to someone else's subjective moral code arbitrarily contradictory and intellectually inconsistent. Such a worldview is not only despicable, but also nowhere to be found in practice in actuality.

Your analogy isn't quite right. Genocide and charity are actions, color preference is an opinion. People react far greater to actions than to someone's opinion and the feedback from Genocide or Charity develop cultural norms over time.

[Liberation]

The Spartans were a highly successful city state in ancient Greece. They killed new born babies which they deemed too weak. It's infanticide, and they did it on a social level, and this practice did not lead to the destruction of their culture.

Yes, I know. And where are they now?

(This may seem like a naive question, but it is not.)

No culture that was around 2500 years ago is the same as it is now, what's your point? They evolved their standards, their morality changed because it's subjective, and they stopped performing infanticide. Either way, infanticide didn't bring down the Spartan civilization, time did.

I'm not saying this exact idea brought down their civilisation. But if several civilisations managed to prosper over the centuries or even more, and they declined from a powerful kingdom and a very significant military force to basically just one of many parts of a country, it seems their general idea of a society didn't work very well. They're not the only such case, in general the cultures which treated killing lightly didn't last. On the other hand, cultures which have had much more to offer than brutal force (and killing the weakest children to have stronger soldiers is nothing else than a manifestation of a brutal force culture) have mostly survived - for example, the Roman culture has lasted for nearly 3000 years and while it wasn't an empire later, it's always remained significant.

[Scheavo]

Every powerful kingdom, that has ever existed, under whatever morality, has declined. It would seem that the general idea of every society didn't work very well.

If Roman culture is still alive, than Spartan and Greek culture are certainty still alive. Rome, since you bring it up, was also extremely brutal and violent; so that's at odds with the sentence you described just before.

[Liberation]

Except some kingdoms evolved into proper countries and some declined into just regions (or something similar) or even less than that.

Greek culture certainly is, but I wouldn't call the Spartan culture that influential on the rest of Europe - it may be interesting from the military point of view, but it didn't significantly influence the European culture as a whole that much. I'd even risk saying it was less influential than some characters who helped shape the European culture as it is (Plato for example).

It was brutal and violent because let's face it, every single culture back then was very violent to a certain extent; which is why I said precisely cultures which have had much more to offer than brutal force. The Spartan culture was heavily focused on war and violence; so was the Roman culture (well, their empire wasn't exactly created by peaceful means) to a certain level, but it was less obsessed by the military and killing which is reflected by their culture having lots of other achievements. I think the first step of establishing a certain way of thinking - in this case "killing is wrong" - is to stop being fascinated by the opposite idea.

[73109]

Why is it that survival or success is the metric for what's moral?

That's a very interesting question. Believe it or not, there are some prominent atheists that believe in an objective morality. Sam Harris is the big one, and he is an avowed atheist and hates moral relativists. His claim is that morality is equated with general well being, and I have major problems with that.

[BlobVanDam]

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.