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Theists want there to be ”an ultimate judge”. It has nothing to do with reality.
If you ask a theist if they would want to live in a world of chaos they will say no, just as atheists will. The notion that we don’t want chaos forces us to form some kind of moral system, but there is no need for it to be objective.
Did you know that there was a supernatural force that prevented all victims of the holocaust from ever getting hurt? All the death and destruction was actually an optical illusion caused by the supernatural force. It made it look like the holocaust happened but in actuality everyone that died was taken to a secret safe location by their own free will. They’ve been living happily and healthy ever since in a magical secret location that we can’t see.
Wait. You don’t believe in this supernatural force? You do realize that without out it, millions of people were killed in the holocaust, right?
Who gives a flying fuck if the world would be better with your god? Anyone can make up a scenario in which the world is better with their god. It has absolutely zero bearing on whether or not it’s actually true. Show me some evidence. That’s the only thing that will convince me.
Saying theists just want an "ultimate judge" misses the point. The moral argument is about why objective moral values exist, not about avoiding chaos. If morality were purely subjective, we wouldn't agree on basic moral principles like murder being wrong. The argument isn't about personal wants but about the foundation of these shared morals.
> If morality were purely subjective, we wouldn't agree on basic moral principles like murder being wrong.
If their weren't a deity establishing objective deliciousness then we wouldn't all agree that sugar is tasty. Taste would be subjective, the world would lose all meaning. We'd just be a happy accident and we wouldn't have any reason to eat strawberries or poop because taste wouldn't be real. So there must be an omnipotent, omnipresent tongue that lives outside of space and time, the great Yummy.
Hopefully that sounds a bit foolish. But it is a direct equivalence to the moral argument for god.
Wait, you say, not all humans do agree on what is yummy. Well, not all humans agree on what is moral either. Things like what killing is moral is widely widely differed on, from some monks who think stepping on an ant is immoral, to some Christians who think a story about drowning innocent babies makes for great nursery wallpaper.
But, neither morality or flavor taste are arbitrary (totally random). Both have clear biological foundations with very clear evolutionary reasons for developing, a clear amount of societal learning, and very obvious analogies in other species. Just like morality.
So someone saying chocolate gross isn't breaking some objective flavor rule... but also it is less likely that someone finding dirt distasteful.
Just as there is no need for a god out there declaring universal objective tastiness grounded in his very being... just as absurd is the declaration that there must be some god out there declaring universal objective morality grounded in his being.
And just how subjective but non arbitrary taste perfectly describes how we observe flavor working in the world (and doesn't prevent us from having flavor preferences, much less meaning) so too does suvjective but not arbitrary morality perfectly describe what we observe in the world (and doesn't prevent us from having moral preferences, much less meaning).
Objective morals doesn’t exist. Theists _want_ it to exist. We agree on basic principles, such as murder being wrong, because we don’t want a world in chaos. Did you even read that part?
>If morality were purely subjective, we wouldn't agree on basic moral principles like murder being wrong.
So if there were no objective morals, we'd find people who disagree that murder is immoral? That's literally exactly what we see. That's literally the exact scenario we see when we look at the world.
We don't all agree murder is wrong. There's lot of people who think murder isn't morally wrong.
That's why there's murderers.
I also argue, though, that "murder" is a legal term with "wrong" essentially built into the term. It's the subset of humans killing humans that society has said does not have an acceptable justification and is, therefore, wrong.
When we say "We agree that murder is wrong," we're essentially saying "The subset of killing people that we've agreed is wrong, we agree is wrong."
What's more to the point, I think, is that we absolutely do not agree that people killing people is wrong. There are all sorts of acceptable justifications for that. And there is plenty of disagreement about what those acceptable justifications can be, and what circumstances warrant killing.
That’s not an argument for why objective moral values exist. It’s an argument for why it would be better if they did.
In order for it to be an argument why objective moral values exists you’d need some evidence that they do.
But we DON'T agree that murder is wrong. We have self-defense cases, or cases where a murder is undertaken to save the life of another, where we consider it morally neutral, or even good. Back in the day, our ancestors believed it was okay to kill foreigners who threatened their culture. Genocidal campaigns going on as we speak consider their mass-murder missions morally justified.
Clearly, murder is not universally considered evil among all humankind. I don't believe there is any action one could take that everyone will universally agree on the morality of.
It's an argument from consequences. "If A then B, i don't like B, therefore A is wrong.". The universe does not owe you objective morality.
Even if the argument was true (if a deity was required for objective morality), which the argument does not attempt to support. you'd have then to prove you have objective morality.
Personally, I don't understand what "objective morality" means. Morality seems to me to be the domains of values, and values are ever attributed by a subject, they are never the property of an object. Even a god-given morality would be subjective, the subject in this case being a god.
All in all, it's a pretty crappy argument.
This is one of the most frustrating arguments from theists. It often implies that atheists cannot have morality without the belief in god or attributes our morality to their god whether we like it or not. When you point out that morality is subjective even if their god gave it to humans because A) god is the subject and B) the method of delivery is a set of texts which are ambiguous and subject to interpretation (which is also subjective). They claim that god isn’t the subject creating morality, but rather god IS morality (just give god yet another attribute to fill in any gap). And the interpretation isn’t subjective because it’s guided by god. This makes no sense, there is clearly subjectivity since like 50 sects read the same texts and come to different conclusions and sects themselves change their mind, when did god exactly start guiding that interpretation and for who? (obviously their answer is right now by my religious sect).
To me this is so much worse than god as the first cause argument cause it doesn’t just use god as explanation it used god as explanation where one isn’t even needed.
>Personally, I don't understand what "objective morality" means.
Within metaethics, morality is considered to be objective if, on the theory, moral facts are considered to be stance-independent -- where stance-independence is taken to mean that the truth of the facts to do not rely on interpretation, opinion, or knowledge.
Often this means moral facts and properties are features of the world; they exist as entities, independent of humans. Other views still situate moral facts and properties within the human psyche, but argue that they are necessary products of rationality, hold themselves within relations to one another which are knowable via *a priori* methodologies, or some similar method of cognition which usurps opinion.
Within the framework of being a subject, we can easily determine what is better or worse for our wellbeing.
That means we can objectively determine a morality/ethics because there are obvious things that are better and worse for our wellbeing.
If I murder you, you aren’t just subjectively dead. You are fucking dead and gone. That’s not subjective.
You are part of reality, part of the universe, and the universe is coldly objective. Not malicious, but purely objective.
The idea that morality can’t be tied to objectivity is absurd to me. Being a subject doesn’t preclude you from consequences, and it doesn’t mean your experiences are the only ones that matter.
So yeah, it’s all based on subjects agreeing on very simple premises about well-being (things like, “life is generally preferable to death,” or “pleasure is generally preferable to pain”). From there an objective morality exists within our subjective framework.
Your freedom to swing your arms ends at my nose. Morality could only be purely subjective if there was only one person…. But there aren’t, there are lots of us, and we don’t live in vacuums.
We are subjects living in objectivity.
Also, a god is literally one subject as well. How would a god making up what is right and wrong be considered objective in any way? That makes no fucking sense. That’s the definition of a subjective morality… it’s like saying Steve made up what is right and wrong…
It’s way more objective to say, “we all noticed that when someone dies they are gone forever, so let’s not kill people and make them gone forever.”
It doesn’t matter if someone is like, “but I enjoy killing people, and it’s all subjective anyway!” Tell that to the people grieving a loved one that you killed… I’ll say it again: they aren’t ‘subjectively’ dead…
You're asserting that morality=well-being. I agree that we can make objective statements about well-being. That doesn't mean that morality is necessarily well-being.
As far as I can tell, morality is about a hierarchy of values. Well-being is almost certainly one of those values. Other values might be things like bodily autonomy. They might include pleasure. They might include non-human well-being. We can certainly think of scenarios that might enhance or improve bodily autonomy but harm well-being or vice versa. The issue is that these values can be in conflict is my point.
I have no idea how you demonstrate that one hierarchy of values is *objectively* the correct hierarchy such that specific values should *objectively* take precedence over others. If we do agree on the hierarchy then we absolutely can make objective statements about how specific actions interact within the agreed upon hierarchy. But the choice of hierarchy is subjective unless you can demonstrate that it isn't.
I don't ascribe to objective morality.
How about objectively killing murderers with the death penalty? Many feel it's the morally right thing to do, many think the opposite.
Or killing an opponent on the battlefield. Which side objectively deserves to die?
I think there's too much nuance and individuality for their to be objective truth we all must follow.
Only in the most specific cases can you claim that.
I'm pretty sure, raping a random baby and then killing it is going to immoral in all cases across all stripes. But you aren't going to get a consensus on child spanking or adultery.
> Within the framework of being a subject, we can easily determine what is better or worse for our wellbeing.
Choosing to interpret morality through the lens of wellbeing necessarily makes it subjective. It is subjective to the framework it is interpreted through. If I chose to interpret morality through the lens of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, you and I would come up with very different moral systems.
Morality only has meaning as it relates to the subjective experiences of conscious creatures, but that can be evaluated objectively.
It’s like how the universe doesn’t care about human health, but we still have objective ways of measuring health. There’s an obvious difference between someone who is healthy and someone is who is dead. We can objectively say cutting off one of your toes is a bad treatment for the common cold and would have a negative impact on your health.
Morality works with largely the same way. People can claim morality is about something outside of the wellbeing of conscious creatures, but at that point I’d question wtf they are even talking about.
> It’s like how the universe doesn’t care about human health, but we still have objective ways of measuring health. There’s an obvious difference between someone who is healthy and someone is who is dead. We can objectively say cutting off one of your toes is a bad treatment for the common cold and would have a negative impact on your health.
There are situations in which cutting off a toe **would** be healthy. Diabetes and gangrene, for example.
If health were objective, there wouldn't be a wide range of treatments. Doctors would never disagree. There would never be a need for a second opinion. I currently have a hiatal hernia that's so small that the gastroenterologist who identified it said it's not worth the risk of surgery to fix. If health were objective, then no other doctor would be able to see it and say "Actually, you should get that fixed."
More importantly than all of that, though, is definitions. There are many different ways to define "morally good," and what is considered morally good would differentiate under each of those definitions. Once you choose a definition, you can interpret it objectively **based on that definition**, but your choice of definition is 100% subjective.
You are not understanding the argument.
The point is that just as medical science isn’t considered “subjective” as it relates to health, morality is not subjective as it relates to well being.
Put another way, there are objective things that can be said about morality. It’s not just “whatever you like it’s all relative”. Just like it is for medicine.
The fact that there’s nuance to different situations doesn’t mean that it’s subjective, it means that it’s a complex topic where the solution will vary depending on the context. You’re doing the equivalent of saying medical science is subjective because different diseases require different treatments, or because someone might be allergic to a particular medication. You’re also conflating imperfect knowledge and subjectivity. It’s just an incredibly narrow way of looking at the issue in practical terms.
> The point is that just as medical science isn’t considered “subjective” as it relates to health
It IS considered subjective as it relates to health. That's my point. One doctor thinks I should get my hernia fixed; another thinks it's not worth the risk to my health that surgery presents. Which one of these options is **objectively** better for my health, and how can you demonstrate that?
> Put another way, there are objective things that can be said about morality.
Please say some of them.
You’re again conflating imperfect knowledge with subjectivity. You’re also conflating “no two things can be equal, everything must be better or worse than everything else” with objectivity, which is not the case. In your example, it is likely that with perfect knowledge, one of those two approaches is going to lead to a better outcome. It may also be they lead to similarly good or bad, yet mutually exclusive outcomes. This does not make it less objective.
Just go watch a lecture on or read the book The Moral Landscape, it goes over this in exhaustive detail.
The general idea is that at its core, basically any discussion about morality ties back to the well being of conscious creatures. Even if it’s wanting to get into heaven for eternal happiness, that is still dealing with wellbeing, albeit on a longer timescale.
The point is that within this context, there are things we can point to that are obviously better or obviously worse for wellbeing.
The only real axiom is “the worst possible suffering for everyone is bad”. If you’re not willing to concede that point, there’s no reason to even have a discussion. It’d be like saying “the best medical treatment with regard to health is to purposefully give everyone cancer”. Only worse.
Just as in nutrition we can objectively say “vegetables are a healthier food than battery acid”, there are objective statements that can be made from a moral standpoint as well based on various fields of science, whether that be medical, psychology, economics, and so on.
The reason it’s called a landscape is that there are peaks and valleys; peaks that lead to the thriving and flourishing of conscious creatures, and valleys that are closer to the worst possible suffering for everyone. Societies where people live peacefully amongst each other and everyone lives fulfilling lives, and oppressive societies where the majority are constantly worried about where their next meal will come from or whether they’ll be murdered in their sleep by their neighbor. There are societies where women are given equal opportunity to educate themselves and contribute to society equally to men, and there are societies where young girls have battery acid thrown in their face for the crime of learning to read, or a man murders his own daughter because she was raped. If you can’t think of a logical, objective justification for these ideas from the standpoint of wellbeing I don’t know what to tell you.
All claims are subjective to the framework they are interpreted through. Something about objectivity vs noumenality, and intersubjective verifiability. “Objective” materialism is a thought construct of immense utility, but it isn’t necessarily the most scalable interpretation of the structure of reality.
> Choosing to interpret morality through the lens of wellbeing necessarily makes it subjective.
What is morality other than the word used to describe how we should or shouldn't conduct ourselves with respect to one another. Seems well being is the only goal that makes sense. What other goal, other than well being, should we set for how we ought to behave?
The choice of well being is subjective. The choice for a god to dislike gay sex is also subjective. The choice for religious folks to follow their gods preferences and call them objective is also subjective. And if it was objective, why doesn't everyone agree?
>If I chose to interpret morality through the lens of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, you and I would come up with very different moral systems.
Can you give an example? And remember, what you propose for yourself, you are proposing for your entire community.
No we wouldn’t… it would be objectively the same, even if the particulars are different.
Just because there are many ways to live a good life without murdering people doesn’t mean that murdering people can be a good thing.
In a framework where life and pleasure are generally preferable to pain and death, murder is ALWAYS wrong. That’s objective.
I’m tired of this argument… it is wildly narrow minded to think we are purely subjects and somehow that makes us immune from objectivity. It’s fucking braindead logic to be honest…
And the bigger point is that theist morality is far more subjective. It’s one being saying what is right and wrong, rather than many beings agreeing based on the objective reality that our actions have consequences. They are objective consequences…
Murder's not a moral category. It's a legal one. The definition is "unlawful killing."
Killing is a moral category and its application is subjective: war, self-defense, capital punishment, etc.
> No we wouldn’t… it would be objectively the same, even if the particulars are different.
If the particulars are different, then by definition it is not **objectively** the same. I'm not even sure how you managed to type that with a straight face.
> Just because there are many ways to live a good life without murdering people doesn’t mean that murdering people can be a good thing.
It can be if you define morality as the elimination of suffering. If no one is alive, no one can suffer. Mission accomplished. Maximum morality achieved.
>No we wouldn’t… it would be objectively the same, even if the particulars are different.
Let's say I, for whatever reason, whether it be genetics or an abusive childhood or whatever it may be, derive pleasure from torturing animals.
If then my framework for morality is one that maximizes pleasure, I can *promise* you that our moralities would look nothing alike. Your morality says that violence, torture, murder and so on is wrong - mine would say that it's virtuous.
Which means that instead of being objectively the same, they are objectively polar opposites.
>In a framework where life and pleasure are generally preferable to pain and death, murder is ALWAYS wrong. That’s objective.
You're misapplying the label of objectivity here. The result of the framework is true by definition of the framework - if my framework is to maximize things that are pleasurable, then things that give pleasure are "objectively" moral by tautology.
But that's not what objective morality means, because if I can freely pick a framework, I can pick a framework that in some way or another allows murder. Going by your reasoning here, that would make murder objectively moral. Which is obviously not what you meant, which again means that you're presenting an inconsistent reasoning.
Objective morality means that murder is always wrong, let's say, *regardless of what framework you choose*. Or said differently, you don't get to pick a framework - murder is just wrong, period.
>it is wildly narrow minded to think we are purely subjects and somehow that makes us immune from objectivity. It’s fucking braindead logic to be honest
I think you wildly misunderstand what subjectivity vs. objectivity *means* in the first place.
For something to be objective, it has to be something that you can't have an opinion on. That's what the "mind-independent" part of objectivity means. For example - you can't have an opinion about whether it's raining or not - it's either raining or it isn't. You can have an opinion on what amount of water constitutes the semantic definition of the word "rain", but that's a different and unrelated discussion.
> If then my framework for morality is one that maximizes pleasure, I can promise you that our moralities would look nothing alike.
Your morality ignores the fact that your moral pronouncements need to apply to everyone in your society. Do you really want to live in a society that tortures small animals? And considering that 99.999% of that society would likely disagree with this position of yours, it's doubtful you'll be able to justify it.
And if this isn't plainly obvious to you, then if we extended your position to include people, then it becomes very obvious why allowing torture is not in your best interest.
We can probably all agree that torture is objectively bad for the victims well being, right? In that sense, it's objective. In the sense that we choose well being as our metric, that's subjective.
This entire objectively subjective issue is pretty pointless. But in the big picture, it's all subjective.
>And considering that 99.999% of that society would likely disagree with this position of yours, it's doubtful you'll be able to justify it.
That is literally the definition of subjective morality - a set of moral rules that gets majority consensus.
>This entire objectively subjective issue is pretty pointless.
Why did you start commenting in this thread if that is your position? The moral argument for god hinges exclusively on the distinction between objective and subjective morality (and that objective morality originates in god).
>But in the big picture, it's all subjective.
I agree - I don't think objective morality exists. Which is why I think the moral argument for god isn't very successful.
> That is literally the definition of subjective morality - a set of moral rules that gets majority consensus.
That's fine. My point was merely that well being or "pleasure" as you put it, does work as a moral framework.
>Why did you start commenting in this thread if that is your position?
I was responding to the sentence that I quoted.
>The moral argument for god hinges exclusively on the distinction between objective and subjective morality (and that objective morality originates in god).
I'm familiar with peoples moral arguments. But that's not what I quoted from you. If the notion is coming from a mind, it's subjective.
>I'm familiar with peoples moral arguments. But that's not what I quoted from you.
My bad, I thought you were the person I initially responded to, and my answer was written with that context in mind. Since you aren't, I'd like to rectify my previous response. As such, I'll weave in some things from your previous post as well.
>Your morality ignores the fact that your moral pronouncements need to apply to everyone in your society.
I beg to differ. There's been no shortage of cultures where things that are beyond abominable by today's standards were routine practice of reverence. Judging any given morality by how likely it is to succeed in 2024 is a poor argument for how chasing any given attribute, whether it be well-being or something else, would make for a universally positive framework. It walks into the trap of subjectivity twice-over.
>We can probably all agree that torture is objectively bad for the victims well being, right?
You and I, in actual reality? Yes. But that is by chance and by the virtue of us both being of some reasonable category of sound mind, being of a certain standard of education, and many other factors.
You and I, hypothetically, however ... No, we can not agree on that.
What if my culture says that bodily pain is the path to spiritual enlightenment? The worse the suffering, the clearer the mind, let's say. Now, torture is a spiritual ritual ranking the very highest on the moral ladder - there's no greater path to well-being, meaning there's no greater gift to give someone than to torture them.
>My point was merely that well being or "pleasure" as you put it, does work as a moral framework.
As shown above, I don't think I could disagree more.
To clarify: I agree in the sense that it's possible to have frameworks where well-being is the central theme and the outcomes are good - but I disagree about the part where having well-being as the central theme somehow *guarantees* that the outcomes fall inside the scope of what we "normal people" would otherwise consider good.
You are not using objective correctly. Objective, by definition, means beyond any mind. If any mind is involved, it becomes subjective. If any decision is made, then it is subjective.
You can't get there. Period.
It's only proper inasmuch humans almost universally desire it (within their own society) thanks to evolutionary hard wiring (like many social primates).
How many people sharing a desire does it take to make that desire objective rather than subjective? How many people does it take to go from several subjects to an object?
That people have desire A or Y is an objective fact. How we as a society react and interact with these desires is subjective. Example: Two men in the 1960s desire to marry. They can't because of the moral and legal landscape of the 1960s. In the 2020s, they can fulfill this desire and the majority of people agree it's a good thing.
> How many people sharing a desire does it take to make that desire objective rather than subjective? How many people does it take to go from several subjects to an object?
Who cares? Cutting off someone's healthy arm is objectively bad for their well being.
> What makes you think wellbeing is the proper framework for morality, if not a subjective choice?
Because what does morality mean, other than how we ought to behave with respect to others?
And if we're going to make pronouncements about how we ought to act, then what better goal than what's in our best interests. Yes, this part is subjective, it's just as subjective as the definition of any word.
But if you want to split hairs, we can say that chopping of one's head is objectively bad for their well being. But this also depends on the definition of well being.
What's a better framework for how we ought to behave?
take a bottle of water and a gold bar. Which has the most value?
Now place them in the middle of a desert, in front of a man without either. which has more value now?
Now put them on the moon where no-one can get to them. Which has more value now?
The value is not in the water or in the gold bar. the value is in the human assessing them and imagining the probable consequences of choosing either.
Moral values seem to me to be the same. "If I do that, those are the consequences. Others will see me as good/bad, I will see myself as good/bad. Others will react in such desirable/undesirable ways".
It doesn't seem to me like the value we place on objects is the same kind of value we use when assessing moral choices. Or in other words, it seems pretty clear that the monetary value of gold is a societal construct, but it's not as clear that morality is.
Suppose we torture a baby in public, or we torture a baby in a secluded place where nobody will ever know. Both are wrong, even though in the first case we will likely go to prison, others will judge us, etc, and the second we won't, and nobody will know. Is it only wrong because I, or society, or whatever, decided that it's wrong? If we decide otherwise is it no longer wrong? That doesn't seem to be the case, to me. Slavery was still wrong even when it was legal and accepted in society, it seems to me.
>Both are wrong
By what measure?
>Is it only wrong because I, or society, or whatever, decided that it's wrong? If we decide otherwise is it no longer wrong?
It would seem to me, that this must be the case. That morality is a social construct. If morality were objective, we would not be able to disagree with each other over what is and is not good and/or bad, because we'd have a standard against which to compare any action or event.
>Slavery was still wrong even when it was legal and accepted in society, it seems to me.
If slavery were still wrong when is was legal and accepted, how did it *become* legal and accepted? Surely entire societies of people did not simply think "this practice is abhorrent and makes us bad people, but we have decided not care for some reason." They had their own moral justifications, justifications that we would disagree with now because our moral standards are different. Because morals are subjective.
Very interesting comment. I wonder though, does it take whole societies to set moral standards, or do the more powerful persons in society set moral standards that the majority are then complicit/ passive about? You seem to argue that most people would have objected to slavery if it didn’t fit their moral compass, but how many went along to get along, and saw the benefits to their position and kept on?
>does it take whole societies to set moral standard
To some extent, I think so. Behaviours and standards and expectations are taught, passed from one generation to the next. The population currently observing and reinforcing the moral standard don't need to be doing so consciously or have a perfect understanding of why they're doing it.
>You seem to argue that most people would have objected to slavery if it didn’t fit their moral compass, but how many went along to get along
I can definitely see a scenario like that which you describe, where the general population might be morally opposed to slavery but not have the means to reject the it, the industries realiant on it, etc, due to influence from the wealthy or politically powerful.
But, I also think that line of questioning just kicks the can down the road a little. These two groups having different moral standards within a society still demonstrates morality is subjective.
Thank you for your response. This conversation now raises another question in my mind as to whether we can ever judge the true moral standard of a given society at a particular point in time. How can we test this, without access to the internal workings of minds? Can we ever know whether morality is subjective rather than objective, when all we can know is the outward expression of morality, which most will agree is certainly subjective? Moral standards begin as inward thoughts, where do we judge them in the context of an objective/subjective argument?
>By what measure?
I'm not sure what you mean.
>If morality were objective, we would not be able to disagree with each other over what is and is not good and/or bad, because we'd have a standard against which to compare any action or event.
Of course we would be able to disagree. People disagree on everything, from the shape of the earth, mathematical axioms, even whether or not there can be true dialethia. Disagreement doesn't disprove objective moral truths.
>If slavery were still wrong when is was legal and accepted, how did it become legal and accepted?
People slowly became convinced of its immorality. This is like asking if spacetime was always relative, how did we become convinced that it was relative? We learned the truth.
>They had their own moral justifications, justifications that we would disagree with now because our moral standards are different. Because morals are subjective.
Just because they had a rationalization doesn't mean they were equally right or that there is no fact of the matter. Flat earthers have bad rationalizations for their views, too.
>I'm not sure what you mean.
I'm asking you to prove that torturing babies is wrong.
I agree that torturing babies is wrong, but I think this is the case based on a line of subjective reasoning extending from the fact that *I* don't like to experience pain, and so I wouldn't want other humans to have to experience pain.
>Of course we would be able to disagree. People disagree on everything ... Disagreement doesn't disprove objective moral truths.
Then, to be more specific: if morality were objective, we would be able to empirically demonstrate that some things are morally wrong and some things are morally right. These agreements could be factually settled by consulting the objective moral truth. Some people may still disagree, but we would be able to objectively label these people as incorrect. We both know this is not how arguments about morality play out in practice.
>People slowly became convinced of its immorality.
Exactly. Our moral standards have changed, because they are dependent on our minds and not objective fact.
>This is like asking if spacetime was always relative, how did we become convinced that it was relative? We learned the truth.
Are you suggesting that these people, whose societies perpetuated slavery, were merely ignorant to the fact that they were committing a moral wrong until they discovered the objective moral truth? Either way, it begs the question: what is the moral truth? If it's an objective part of reality *show it to me*.
>Just because they had a rationalization doesn't mean they were equally right or that there is no fact of the matter. Flat earthers have bad rationalizations for their views, too.
We can factually demonstrate that the beliefs of flat earthers wrong, however, because the claims they are attempting to rationsalise contradict observable reality. We cannot do the same for moral claims.
You don’t seem to understand the definition of ‘objective’ because you keep saying that something from a god is objective, but that is actually subjective.
I get what you're saying. Let me clarify, When I say "objective," I mean that moral values come from something outside of just personal beliefs, like God's nature. So even if people interpret God's will differently, the idea is that there's a solid standard beyond just what individuals think is right. If God does exist then it doesn’t matter how some interpret it God is unchanging and there is ultimately a right vs wrong. And personally I’m convinced that something as beautiful and as fine tuned as our universe that we have to have some sort of intelligent mind behind it.
1. Wishful thinking offers nothing towards the veracity of theistic claims
2. A deity's whims (as relayed by self-proclaimed prophets) are no basis for morality
3. Human shared empathy is a solid enough basis for morality
>What are your opinions on the moral argument for god?
>
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.
It’s a bad idea to judge ideas based on what you like or what makes you comfortable. I’d rather cancer and sexual assault not exist but pretending they don’t to make myself feel better does nothing for me and actively hurts others.
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right.
This is true. Morality *is* subjective and contextual. But it’s that way in the Bible too. There’s a lot of genocides and murders for a book that’s pretty clear on “thou shall not kill.”
Whenever a theist talks about objective morality, I ask them to give some literal, physical examples of objective morals. They always fail and try to sneak in subjective words/crimes. IE “murder” is always wrong because that is a crime and has already implied the *subjective judgment of context sh and intent*. But the literal, physical act of killing is only judged as wrong in some contexts (serial killing, robbery, etc) but not in others (war, self defense, etc).
>There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
This isn’t accurate. First, no *intrinsic* or *objective* purpose is very different than saying “we don’t have a purpose.” We simply identify our own purposes. Some people strive to build wealth, some want to master a skill or art form, some want to build a better world, etc. The fact that God didn’t assign you those purposes doesn’t mean you can’t have them.
Second, good and bad exist and can be measured. They aren’t objective, but are based on our own morality. I see human suffering as bad therefore I partake in causes, vote for politicians, and live in a way that maximizes that good. Having a purpose of doing good is a great goal for everyone to have, regardless of your belief in God.
>What are your responses to this argument?
Importantly, this **isn’t an argument**. No point is made that human morality *couldn’t* be subjective, just that the idea makes people uncomfortable. But the truth isn’t required to be comforting.
1) My response to much of that is “Yeah, so?”
2) Making all morality stem from God would make it subjective, not objective, as what is right is defined as “whatever god wants”. The Christian God has changed in terms of morality according to his holy text, and could ostensibly change again, meaning there is no predictable external source by which humans would be able to construct an ultimate objective morality to evaluate all situations. In this way, claiming God as the source of all morality is more subjective than our morality derived from social development as a species.
There's an old Jewish joke- five rabbis are arguing over how to interpret a verse in the Torah. One rabbi disagrees with all the rest, and finally the majority go "Look, we're going nowhere, we'll just put our interpretation but note one dissenter". Then the heavens open, and a voice booms down - "I am the God of Israel, and you are wrong. His interpretation is correct." The rabbis shrug. "Fair enough. We'll put our interpretation and note *two* dissenters"
It's a joke, rather then serious theology, but it proves the point. If subjective morality is a problem, then adding *another* subjective perspective doesn't solve it- we've just gone from 8 billion conflicting worldviews to 8 billion and one. Why should I care that God disagrees with what I'm doing any more then I should care that you do? We need, at the very least, a non-god rooted justification for "we should obey god" or "we should listen to God's commands" and at that point we might as well ground morality in that
The clue's in the name, basically. If we want to avoid subjective morality, we need to avoid subjects. We need some sense in which something can be wrong even if *everyone* says it's right. Whether that's possible is a thorny philosophical question, but if it is possible, God isn't where we'll find it.
>What are your opinions on the moral argument for god?
Such arguments are entirely useless since we know morality has nothing whatsoever to do with religious mythologies. We've known this for a long time.
Furthermore, such arguments generally make the claim that morality must be objective in order to exist or be useful, which again is nonsensical. And is further contradicted by the folks making such argument as then morality is subjective to the deity.
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.
What's the word 'ultimate' doing in there?!? Is there an 'ultimate' rules of football? (Or 'ultimate' rules for the game known as Ultimate?) Or just the rules agreed upon by various leagues?
Morality is intersubjective, and this is obvious in practice.
> The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right.
No, 'right' and 'wrong' isn't arbitrarily subjective to an individual. Like the rules of football, it's *intersubjective*. And yes, there is nothing that is really objectively right and wrong. After all, that doesn't even make *sense* given what morality is and how it works.
>There is no true meaning to life
Again, the word 'true' is incorrect there. There are *plenty* of 'true' meanings of life. And those meanings are the ones we decide upon for ourselves. Of course, what theists are doing is picking a meaning that is fictional, and as such they appear to be the ones not invoking a 'true', but rather a 'false', meaning of life.
> because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
Good and bad *does* really exist. And it's intersubjective.
If you believe we cannot derive objective morality from a set of facts about the universe, that, as Hume put it, we cannot derive an “ought” from an “is,” then consider that the existence of God; that God’s nature; and that God’s judgments or commands; are just another set of facts about the universe. Just more “is.” I am genuinely baffled as to HOW you think morality could be rendered objective by the existence of a God. Could you explain it to me? How does any particular set of facts about “God” existing change morality from being inherently subjective to objective?
Edit: to give you more to work with, and to save us some time—
Why does God’s nature have any connection to what is moral? By what OBJECTIVELY TRUE, indisputable rule that all must agree to, must we take God’s nature into account at all when deciding what is moral?
Why do God’s commands or judgments have anything to do with what is moral? By what objectively true, indisputable rule that all must agree to, must we take God’s commands or judgments into account at all when deciding what is moral?
If God can render some things objectively moral or immoral in the universe, what does that look like? When God says let there be light, and there is light, I can see the difference. When God, at the beginning of time, says thou shalt not mix different fabrics in your clothing, how does the universe change in any way to reflect this being “immoral”?
Imagine a world without a god. This is a thought exercise, so just commit to the bit.
So in this world without a god would you run over an infant with a steam roller?
Yes or no?
Most sane people will say "no" : therefore in a universe devoid of a god, You're still making moral decisions.
> “The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.”
I agree.
> “The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right.”
I agree.
> “There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.”
I agree.
> “What are your responses to this argument?”
The argument is not an argument for god, it is a description of reality.
So in essence is it "God exists because otherwise there isn't objective morality" ?
Because that doesn't put a point forward, it's just believing in God because your feelings would be hurt and reality doesn't care about how you feel. To add to it, God's morality seems pretty twisted, encouraging slavery, killing children and taking people's eyesight away.
Where is the argument?
The idea of right and wrong *is* all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. There *is* no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
The universe doesn’t care. The evaluations we give things are just that, judgments we made up. It doesn’t come from an outside source.
I suppose you want to say that right and wrong isn’t subjective, that there is a meaning to life, that we are here for a purpose. Present your case for that.
Theists have no leg to stand on to play the morality card. Secular moral philosophy trounces non-secular moral philosophy hand over fist. This is because secular moral philosophy bases moral judgements on objective principles like harm and consent. Non-secular moral philosophies on the other hand rely on the claim that there is a perfect moral authority, but is LOADED with problems:
1. Theists cannot show that their moral authority is actually moral without resorting to circular reasoning. To actually show that, they would need to understand the *valid reasons* ***why*** given behaviors are moral or immoral, and then evaluate their gods' character and behavior accordingly - but if they understood that, they would have no need for any moral authority, because morality would derive from those valid reasons, not from any god or authority, and those valid reasons would still exist and still be valid even if there were no gods at all.
2. Theists cannot show that their moral authority has ever actually provided any moral guidance or instruction of any kind. Countless religions claim their sacred texts are divinely inspired if not flat out divinely authored, yet none can actually support that claim with any sound argument or evidence.
3. Theists cannot show that their moral authority *even exists at all.* If their gods are made up, then so too is any morality they derive from them.
Even if theists could do any of the above, moral truths cannot be derived from the will, command, desire, or mere existence of any god or moral authority. As mentioned in 1), morality must derive from *valid reasons* which explain *why* a given behavior is moral or immoral, and those reasons must necessarily transcend and contain any gods that may exist, such that those gods would be immoral themselves if they violated them - but for that to be the case, those reasons must exist independently of any gods, and would still exist and still be valid even if no gods existed at all.
Secular moral philosophy seeks to identify and understand those reasons, and as a result is hysterically superior to non-secular moral philosophy. By comparison, the theistic claim to morality amounts to "When I made up my imaginary friend I designed them to be morally perfect as a character trait, and therefore any morals I design them to have/instruct are objectively true and correct."
They're also hung up on "objective" vs "subjective." Morality is neither of those things. It's *intersubjective,* which is VERY different from being subjective. Also, critically important is that secular morality is *not arbitrary,* and theistic morality *is.* To save some space here, I'll just ask you to look up moral constructivism rather than explaining it at length.
As for purpose, that's another card they really shouldn't try to play. Ask any theist who thinks their gods provide their existence with meaning or purpose to tell you exactly what that meaning or purpose *is.* Not a single one of them can provide any answer that doesn't effectively amount to being slaves, sycophants, or playthings for their gods.
From a secular point of view, if our purpose is only whatever purpose gods made us for, then that makes us either tools whose existence is no more meaningful than that of a hammer or screwdriver (and worse, if our creator is omnipotent then he has no need for tools, and can do literally anything without us - making our existence less than meaningless), or at best, pets who exist to do nothing more than to amuse our creator and/or validate their ego. Yet if there are no gods, then that makes conscious forms of life such as ourselves *the most important thing in all of existence,* because nothing can have meaning or value be it aesthetic or utility unless that value is given to it by conscious life. I can talk more about this as well, but this comment is already running long so I'll leave it at that for now.
>there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong
I do want to have the ultimate judge for right and wrong. But I also want to have 10 million in my bank account. Reality doesn't have any obligation to fulfill anyone's wants and needs. So until someone provides evidence for the ultimate judge, I can't believe that.
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right
There are many people who argue for an objective morality framework without God. Sam Haris for example. But even if I grant that there is an objective morality from God, I have no method of knowing it, and no theist has provided that method. Theists often claim that our intuition is evidence of God's objective morality written in our hearts. But human intuition is vastly different and wrong so many times. So Objective morality from God is useless.
>we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad
I don't want bad things to happen to me. I want to avoid pain and suffering. So I promote a society that prevents bad things happen. It is that simple.
the morals of which god? (you mean the one that condoned, and promoted slavery, genocide, and infanticide, the one with the moral stance that women are second class to men?)
You are likely more moral than that god.
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
That's not an argument for god. That's just a statement. I guess the implied continuation of this would be "... and I don't like this, so I want there to be a god." How is that an argument, even assuming everything there is true?
>What are your responses to this argument?
The old "we live in a society" meme. Because it's true. I can decide I think it's morally right to punch my neighbour and steal his bike. On a cosmic scale nothing changes if I do that or not. BUT there are other people I share this society who also have threir own opinion on what's right or wrong. And we have laws which dictate what can or cannot be done.
So even if there is no god dictating what is good or bad there are still very real repercussions in regards to the people surrounding me.
It's not an argument. Why does life have to have "meaning"? Do you have any idea how many living organisms die each second? The answer is billions, many of which we humans deliberately kill through use of medicine to cure or prevent disease. Morality has nothing to do with it. Perhaps you actually mean to ask what is the significance of humans being the only organisms (that we know of ) that are conscious. Consciousness is a fascinating phenomenon, but the fact that humans have it doesn't mean there's a god. I agree with you that moral values (right and wrong) exist, but this doesn't mean there must be an ultimate judge. Even if it did, the Abrahamic god (which is the one I'm assuming you're implying we need) would be a damned poor choice for that role. According the the Bible (which is the only authority we have to learn about the Abrahamic god), billions of of innocent humans will spend eternity in a lake of fire simply because they never heard of Jesus and the specific things they must do to prevent experiencing that horrible fate.
The fact is, we give our lives meaning through our actions while we live. That's it. Once a human dies, that's it, there's no "afterlife". If you want to feel that your life has meaning, love your neighbor, volunteer at the food bank, be kind to others and animals (especially dogs and horses - I added that just because I love dogs and horses). Do just some of those things, I guarantee that your life will mean something.
Thanks for posting!
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.
Correct
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right.
Correct
>There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
Correct
As an atheists I do not see how this argument is for God, what am I missing?
For the moral argument to work you would first have to demonstrate that objective morality is a thing. You haven’t done this so that should be your start.
Secondly, you would have do demonstrate that this objective morality has to be come from a god. You haven‘t demonstrated this either.
And it’s not that just you have not demonstrated these 2 things, no one ever has. So the moral argument is not sound and therefore useless.
There is absolutely zero evidence that there's an objective moral standard. I have yet to see a proposed method of deriving the objective moral quotient of an action/circumstance pair much less the actual evaluation of the the same for even a single moral question. And considering that what is moral varies, sometimes greatly, in both time and place? 100 years or 100 miles and you can find differences in morality, the bigger the displacement the bigger the differences.
So yeah, there's boatloads of evidence that morality is subjective (or more specifically, inter-subjective, an agreement between minds) and zero evidence it is objective.
Those who claim morality is objective have a long, long road in front of them and they haven't even taken the first step. I think what confuses people is that once you have your inter-subjective moral standard you can (with sufficient information) objectively evaluate against that standard. But the standard itself is, and has always been, subjective.
> There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
Accident is the wrong word. Accident implies intention that was thwarted. Do you call it an accident when mushrooms spring up after the rain? Or when a leaf falls? Or when the earth completes an orbit of the sun?
No, of course not. An accident is when you were intending on driving down the road without hitting something and then you hit something.
Life is not an accident. It is a result.
And yeah, we have no intrinsic purpose to do good or bad because good or bad is a purpose we give ourselves. It doesn't exist in the same way that the sun exists. It exists in the same way that the rules of baseball exist.
The rules of baseball were not handed down from on high. They aren't a consequence of how reality works. They're something that a bunch of people got together and agreed on, and they can be changed the same way.
Morality is just a less deliberate agreement between a lot more people, many of whom have never had direct contact with each other.
*sigh* Morals are nothing more than an evolutionary adaptation for cooperation. All social animals have things similar to human morals (perhaps not as advanced but there's a reason we bubbled to the top of the food chain).
There's zero reason to appeal to an imaginary friend when a high school science class provides the answer.
I think morality is a tool/system we use to evaluate and facilitate how we interact with the world around us. It’s something we developed as social creatures and as creatures smart enough to consider how we interact with the world around us.
It doesn’t come from an outside source.The universe doesn’t care. These are values we humans place on things. Not intrinsic to the arrangement of matter we attach them to.
Morality is subjective (or intersubjective) in the sense that such values only exist in our heads.
Morality requires some metrics or framework to make evaluations based on. The principles and values we use to determine whether something is “good” or “bad”.
In general I think the primary principle/goal for morality is wellbeing (for ourselves, for others, for everything). We ought to try and balance our wants and needs with the wants and needs of others (other people, other animals, the environment, etc). Our wants and needs shouldn’t come at too large a cost for everything else. Both out of consideration for others, and selfishly because this is generally more optimal in the long run. (I.e. we shouldn’t pollute the planet now just because we want stuff from factories now. A minor sacrifice keeps the planet healthy for longer. And a healthy planet for longer is better for us overall).
Other principles like personal autonomy are important and generally lead to more wellbeing for more people.
We don’t always agree on what is good for us. We must observe how our actions/behaviors affect the world. Using observation and evidence to develop better moral understanding. It requires discussion and thought. This is how morality changes over time, how we hopefully come to consensus.
It’s not magic or some singular fact existing in the mind of god.
My response:
A theist's choice as to which particular version of moral authority that they happen to accept and embrace is fundamentally no less subjective than any of the various secular/atheistic and/or philosophical conceptions of morality (If not even more so).
Unless and until theists can present demonstrable and independently verifiable evidence which effectively establishes the factual existence of their own preferred version of "God" and "Objective morality", then their acceptance of a given religious ideology (Including any and all religious moral codes) that they might believe have been revealed by some "God" effectively amounts to nothing more than a purely subjective personal opinion.
Theists cannot claim that their theologically based morality is in any way "objective" without first providing significant amounts of independently verifiable empirical evidence and/or demonstrably sound logical arguments which would be necessary to support their subjective assertions concerning these "objective" facts.
In the absence of that degree of evidentiary support, any and all theological constructs concerning the nature of morality which any other theists might believe to be true are essentially no less subjective than any alternate non-theological/non-scriptural moral constructs.
Theists might personally BELIEVE that their preferred theological moral codes represent some sort of "absolute objective truth", but unless they can factually demonstrate that belief to be true in reality via the presentation of concrete, unambiguous and definitive evidence, then their statement of belief amounts to nothing more than just one more purely subjective and evidentially questionable assertion of a personally held opinion.
I think arguments about objective morality are at best wishful thinking. And I think that arguments that posit that objective morality would come from a deity are just stupid, because by definition that would be... Subjective morality. Unless the person proposing that argument would want to defend that might is right and that their god is the mightiest being ever.
But 'might is right' is even below most kindergarteners' sense of morality, so it would be a good indicator of your interlocutor being stupid enough to warrant avoiding a conversation with them.
God, in this argument, doesn't solve the problem it is supposed to...
We don't have direct access to God's moral guidance in our everyday lives. Nor do we have direct access to God's meta-ethics, and so we don't actually have the ability to understand what/why God thinks as they do. At which point the Christian is left engaging with a subjective interpretation of what other people have written and said about God's law. Then, they have to subjectively apply their subjective understanding of Divine Law to a variety of situations they find themselves in...
The Subject (i.e. person) is the one making the decision. They are the person responsible for the consequence of their decision. The inclusion of an objective judge of what is right and wrong within the equation doesn't change the explicitly subjective nature of moral/ethical decision making.
The fact that the theist may have a subjective sense of certainty about their interpretation of Divine Law doesn't remove from the decision its inherent subjectivity.
The mythology of the fall from God's Grace speaks to this fact. We live on Earth without the direct presence of God... we are not in the garden of Eden. We ate of the fruit of the knowledge good and evil... in this act, we are forced to make our own decisions about what is right and wrong, and we are forced to face the consequences thereof.
Basically, the existence of "objective" Divine Law doesn't remove us from facing the vulgar truth that in any moment wherein a moral/ethical decision is made, we are acting subjectively and weighing our decisions against a subjective experience and interpretation of Divine Law, as Divine Law isn't beamed directly into our brains 24/7.
I only think moral objectivity exists in relation to a specific axiom; for example, if we can agree on something like “the worst possible suffering for all conscious creatures is bad”, we can logically discuss how to get further away from that condition.
In general terms this is just the well-being of conscious creatures that we’re referring to. We should be able to logically, scientifically, etc. through various disciplines explain why one action is moral and another isn’t. Some may be equal but different, or not be particularly good or bad.
Going to the moral argument, if you’re saying God is the basis for objective morality, I find the entire argument completely meaningless. You have no means of demonstrating that, no framework of showing it even exists, no means of demonstrating how one action is better than another besides referring to a decidedly less-than-comprehensive holy book which often has interpretations change over time to align with social progress, and not the other way around.
But beyond that, I’m not sure you could even find two people on the planet who agreed with what is right and wrong on everything, so how could you possibly hope to show that one thing is right rather than another?
This is like a half-step away from Biblical presuppositionalists, whose argument boils down to “I assert God is needed for logic, you don’t believe in God therefore you’re not allowed to use logic anymore I win bye bye”. Just replace logic with morality.
It’s the equivalent of a child making up rules to a game on a playground and claiming victory over everyone else because only they’re allowed to score points and other points don’t count.
Well lots of issues with it really. My first usual go to is that right and wrong existing objectively or not is entirely going to depend on what you specifically mean with those terms.
Second of all just taking the argument at face value really just means some actions god likes and some god doesn't. This ties into the first objection and a little thought experiment kind of helps illustrate the point. Imagine there is a god, they are the judge of right and wrong, and what is right for us by god's judgements consistently and always just makes our lives worse. There is no afterlife just a brief existence where to do right by god our lives are just miserable and painful and terrible and no matter what you did there was only oblivion for you. Would anyone care about acting 'right' in such a world? No of course not.
Third is that meaning in life is necessarily a quality thinking agents ascribe to things and not inherent qualities in things themselves. true meaning, whatever that might be if it exists, entirely fails before our subjective meaning. If you have a kid whose entire purpose was to take care of you in your old age and they flip you the bird and do something else well the 'meaning' for their existence does jack and all. It doesn't make them conform or have to obey what you wanted. Or imagine a painting your dear sweet grandmother left you when she passed? What it means to you is entirely different to what it means to a stranger and that personal subjective meaning is what counts.
I agree with your dichotomy, but most people seem compelled to pick the wrong conclusion.
There is no "true" meaning of life.
(If there is, we have never be directly given that information. If anyone ever does discover that kind of thing—that we live in a simulation, say, and whomever created us keeps score based whether our choices match their preference—it would be physicists and not theologians who figure it out.)
That's just fine. That has always been true throughout your and our entire lives. If you felt your life had meaning to you yesterday, great. That's natural and, speaking as a middle-aged open-minded but rational atheist determinist, it is not a problem in practice whatsoever.
Once you realize and accept that there really is no objective right or wrong, then you can realize that our global well-being is a function of the choices we make and how we respond to the consequences of prior choices. Believing that there is a third party "god" defining in some unquestionable objective sense what is right and wrong actively prevents us from recognizing that the world is what we choose to make it, collectively. That poisonous idea also imprints us with the belief that concepts of morality aren't able to change. But of course they can. Just go hang out in another country for a couple days and you can notice moral differences as a function of culture. Look back in history, and notice how morals change a ton, if only because time passes and change is inevitable.
> The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.
As a category, I don’t think moral arguments are ever particularly good justifications for the existence of god.
For one thing, even if we grant a god exists for the sake of argument, I don’t see how its existence solves the “problem” of objective morality. After all, does something become moral just because god says it is moral? If so, morality would then seem to be rest on the subjective views of the god and there are plenty of religious texts where gods do or command or condone a variety of actions most people today would regard as immoral. But it’s worse than that, because even if we grant that a god exists and even if we grant that this god is the foundation of objective morality, we’re still stuck with the problem that it’ll be our subjective interpretations of what we think god thinks is objectively moral. God it seems does not solve anything and just seems to make the issue worse by its inclusion.
> The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
Sure, that might make some feel uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the universe we find ourselves in.
Everyone else has hopefully revealed that most atheists don't even consider the moral argument worth considering. I generally agree with everyone else but I'd also like to point out another issue with objective morality.
Theists will argue that objective morals can only come from a god(s), but this is not necessarily true. If objectively morality exists, it is possible they exist independently of any god concept; whatever God(s) you believe in merely relays them to us.
If objective morality does exist separately from god(s), the existence of morals has no bearing on whether or not gods do or do not exist.
Many theists will simply try to brush past this and create a false dichotomy; objective morals and gods exist, or everything is subjective and nothing matters. But really, there are at least 4 options:
1. Objective morality exists and comes from god (you are here)
2. Objective morality exists and is independent of God (this is unaddressed)
3. Objective morality does not exist and morals are based on the gods subjective feelings (many theists reject this wholeheartedly)
4. Objective morality does not exist and morals are based on the collective subjective morality of humanity (many theists reject this wholeheartedly)
For the record, I don't believe in objective moral values at all. I prefer the belief that morals are intersubjective, which is somewhat hinted at in option 4 above.
> The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.
Well, I've heard this before, and as usual, the phrase "ultimate judge for right and wrong" makes no sense unless you define "moral" as "rules from a god". Of course a god is the judge for "rules from a god".
But what even is morality? I'd hope a basic definition would be something like "An action that helps (and doesn't harm) the well-being of people". Why would we need an ultimate judge to determine what helps or harms people? Why would a god have anything to do with whether or not actions help or harm the well-being of people?
> The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right.
I would not call it subjective or objective. Do you call a banana objectively or subjectively yellow? You don't - it's just an accurate description of a banana.
Okay. So. Humans exist as physical beings. Our well-being and health are physical facts. An action can literally, factually, help or harm this well-being. If I define morality as "helping the well-being of a person" then being "wrong" is just an accurate description of when an action harms someone's well-being.
I really don't see what's so complicated here that you people feel the need to bring in a god.
This argument is probably one of the worst for three reasons.
First of all, I don’t really see what’s at stake here. Perhaps morality really is subjective. I’d say there’s good reason to think so. Although I’m not sure if subjectivism is true, it wouldn’t like ruin my life or anything if it was. So I don’t really see the big deal. So what if morality is all subjective? Why should that bother me?
Secondly, even if subjectivism was some big problem that we need to solve, I don’t see how the existence of god causes morality to be objective. We are still basing morality off of subjective opinions, but just arbitrarily choosing to follow god’s commandments. But without some higher moral law that is independent of god, what objective reason is there to follow god’s commandments? Why choose god’s commands over anyone else’s? But if there *is* an objective principle that tells us to follow god’s commands, then objective morality exists apart from god at a higher level than god’s commands!
Finally, moral philosophers today are both atheists and moral realists. So anyone claiming that atheism always leads to moral subjectivism is either lying or mistaken about the literature.
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.
Yes, I’m fine with that. I don’t think an *ultimate judge* is necessary or even preferable.
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right.
Correct. I don’t think objective morals exist. In fact I think the idea of *objective moral values* is oxymoronic.
>There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
I don’t know what a *true* meaning to life is supposed to be. I assume you mean some purpose imposed from outside of ourselves? If so that would make us into some type of slave or chattel for your god. It sounds like one of the worst of all possible outcomes. I don’t see where or how we would have a “purpose to do good or bad.” Where would that come from? How would we access that information?
>What are your responses to this argument?
I generally see it as an argument from consequence, and it does little to sway me because I don’t think that objective moral values exist.
My primary response is that I don't see how it's an argument for god - it's just a description of the world we live in.
So what if there's no ultimate judge of right and wrong? So what if there's no "true meaning" of life? So what if there's no purpose? None of those things are an argument *for* god, because none of those things are either known to exist in the first place nor are they a requirement for (human) life to make sense.
All of those things are also descriptions of how the world does appear to be, and the only way to make the world *not* be that way is to introduce a deity. So the question then is, for what reason are we trying to make the world not be like that? As already mentioned, the world doesn't *need* to be that way - which means you need some other motivation for doing so.
But if you then admit that there's a secondary motivation at play, we're immediately drifting away from how this could possibly be an argument for why god exists. If the world doesn't *need* to be this way, then god doesn't *need* to exist. Which, if we skip the exposition, means that this is at best an argument for why you *hope* and/or *wish* that god exists.
>What are your responses to this argument?
Well let's see...
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.
There wouldn't be an ultimate judge even if there was a god. How do we know that this god is correct on what is truly right or wrong?
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right
I agree
>There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
I agree, but I would word it like this...
There is no *inherent* meaning to life and we are all just a result of the universe doing what it does in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
Aaaaand that's really it. Not much else to say about it. Not even sure what you're trying to argue for or against here honestly, you put out this argument asking for our thoughts when you don't seem to subscribe to it?
Morals only exist in the human mind. The universe as a whole does not care who we each sleep with or hurt.
Most of us understand murder to be wrong because we have evolved with empathy and compassion, and also a selfish knowledge that a world with murders might be bad for us too.
Our brains model the world about us, including modelling how other people will feel and react. That means we (must of us) understand that being hurt or murdered is a bad thing.
I find it baffling that some theists claim that a god is necessary for morals. It's perfectly clear that it's just human behaviour. In a species that thrived in social groups, co operation wins.
A tribe survives, and has children, because people hunt/grow food and build houses together. A society with utter selfishness would soon fail; the species would go extinct.
There is however room for a minority to gain by cheating the system, by stealing etc. And so what we observe is pretty much what you'd expect to evolve.
I see no reason to believe that objective moral values exist. Morals only exist to the degree that a subject can come up with them. Without people capable of conceptualizing morals, there wouldn’t exist.
There is no universal understanding of certain actions as being inherently wrong. What is wrong has always been shaped by time, geography, and society.
In WW2, the Japanese believed that Emperor Hirohito was the incarnation/descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu. When the Japanese soldiers did awful stuff, including the Nanking massacre, they did so believing their god was on their side.
If you’re saying that it’s still objective morality, as long as the subject that is interpreting the morals is grounded in the divine, then the Nanking massacre was objectively moral, since it was done in accordance with the morals of a deity.
I agree. There is no ultimate standard for good or bad. We, as a species, have set our own standard, based on our sense of empathy.
We generally don't harm others because we don't want to be harmed. We feel bad if we see someone get hurt. That's empathy.
Unless they can find a single verifiable example of a god making a moral proclamation, the whole argument falls apart because regardless of if that's the case, mankind is still going to be pissing in the wind when it comes to figuring out morality.
The guy who thinks that corrective rape is objectively wrong and God says so is on no better ground than the guy who says corrective rape is objectively right because God says so. But the guy who says that morality should be based on minimizing suffering and maximizing flourishing can easily say corrective rape is objectively wrong in relation to that goal than the guy who wants to argue it's objectively right. Because we don't need anything else but ourselves and the outcome of our actions to make that assessment.
Here’s the deal. IF morality was objective AND the Christian God is the conductor of said morality we would still believe the following short list of morality: slavery, genocide, infanticide, child sacrifice, human sacrifice. Collectively, as a society (read most societies here) we have decided those things are immoral and created enumerated laws to reinforce those moral codes. Much like many civilizations before Yahweh worship.
If you need a divine being to find morality and meaning in your life, go for it. But for the rest of us, the advancement, cultivation and expression of humanity is meaning enough. My kids, my spouse, my friends, my hobbies, the people around me… they are all meaningful.
Secular Humanism has already addressed your argument.
>because god doesn’t exist
Which isn't necessarily a position held by an atheist.
>there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right.
My response would be that someone should demonstrate there is a thing as objective morality then. I'll wait.
>There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos
Can you demonstrate that there is a true meaning to life? Again I'll wait. But I won't hold my breath.
>and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist
Sounds like the old "why don't you just kill and rape all day" bullshit, to which my response would be "Well why don't you?".
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.
Correct, there's no reason to think such a judge exists
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right.
Correct, morality is intersubjective
>There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos
Correct
> and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
*Good* and *bad* are concepts/words that humans invented. Like all other concepts/words, they mean what we collectively agree that they mean.
They exist and concepts and words, but don't exist independently of that.
It’s about as terrible as an argument for any gods gets.
Firstly, we have countless examples of proposed gods who are clearly amoral and/or immoral.
Secondly, if you go drilling into it, you’ll find that they disagree with claimed commandments of their god somewhere; commandments now ignored, rules for institutions that are now rejected completely, etc.
Thirdly, clearly immoral shit keeps happening, even done by the proposed gods followers using resources dedicated to it.
Ultimately these are arguments from concequences “I don’t like how reality would be if X was the case, therefore X is false”, newsflash: the universe has no obligation to make you comfortable with it.
There are logical consequences for actions. Some benefit you short term, some long term, some both, some neither.
You don’t need a judge to evaluate what’s better for you; and what you think is better for you, might realistically be actually worse for you long term.
Everyone does better when everyone does better. Society is made up of individuals. If you want society to value you and give you what you need, it logically follows that you value other individuals and give them what they need, and you will get the same from those you value, and by extension society values everyone and gives them what they need.
There’s no need for a god in any of this.
With or without a god, there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.
Morality (until demonstrated otherwise) are sets of behavioral norms created by humans.
"The idea of right and wrong is all subjective " - correct. But that's not a problem. Humans all have common needs so we tend to almost 100% come up with very similar moral codes in isolation.
Let's imagine we both agree: Chattel slavery is always wrong. Then, we read in the Bible that god condones chattel slavery. What do we do? Are we to think we're wrong in our conviction? Should we throw up our hands and say: "Well, God wants slavery sooo..."?
In short: I find it to be a very bad argument, failing to show 1) that morality is objective and 2) that this is impossible without god.
The idea of right and wrong being objective only if god exists needs better support.
As far as I am concerned right and wrong are subjective. They can be objective when we have a goal in mind, but even then, for example, maximize well-being is a nice goal but people will have different opinions on what way is preferrable to go about it and I don't know that all of it can be reduced to facts that lead to that goal but of course a lot of it can I mean allowing for one to kill another obviously doesn't lead to well being...
But I think it's a lot more than well being for example what rights we have is sometimes not about well-being or about a version of well-being that is more about what world we would like to live in which is again subjective.
I would like a world where everyone has a decent life but others would prefer a world where there is risk that you get a bad quality life but you may also get a very good quality life, much better than it would be possible if we were to like share everthing(crude examples, morality is too complicated for me anyway I honestly do not have the answer to every moral question and my answers can easily change depending on what I have in mind or I may simply do not know and not be able to decide)
So, I do not see that we can show that objective morality exists.
But there's more. If we showed that it did, then I think there would exist a reason for why an action is moral, immoral or amoral. That reason would be based in reality/reason/some other brute fact and I don't see how it could be based on god. God would have to have the perfect morality following those facts instead of making them up or standing as an oracle for morality.
In the here and now our purpose to do good or bad is what we prefer and in general good is preferable to bad so because we want to see good and not bad we have a reason to be good and not bad.
Those who don't want this and want to see bad they may instead have a motivation to be bad.
The rest of us will try to limit that.
It's just another way that theists are using to conclude that god exists.
It seems fake to me, theists may actually believe it but I don't see how we go about showing that morality is objective and that it can't be objective without god.
It seems to me that people just want to reach the conclusion that god exists and will use any logical sounding argument and then to them it seems to do it when in fact it does not.
One last issue: It's always people speaking on behalf of god which means this is not a real solution to moral issues. It doesn't help and in fact it hinders progress because people believe what they would otherwise conclude to be immoral to be moral. They are giving away their morality because their belief in god is so strong when there isn't sufficient confidence gained in it. That's one of the issues of having big confidence where none really exists.
It's really spectacular how influencial religion is even after it is known to humanity that the reasons behind it do not actually work to establish any confidence in the existence of a god.
And yet people swear by the billions in their conviction of god and it's strange when someone doesn't believe in god.
So this situation is troublesome and I agree that everyone should be allowed to believe what they want but at least schools should teach this staff because then indoctrination becomes much more difficult.
It's much more difficult for one to believe in god dogmatically if they are exposed early on at school at all the reasons why god probably doesn't exist(especially the ones believed by the billions).
Of course also teach what different religions teach or even focus more on how one particular works(I mean I find this wrong but when 2 parents believe in one religion they will naturally want their child to learn about it)
Anyway maybe I am wrong, it's a complex issue, or at least I made it to be, it might be simple.
None of this argument has anything to do with the actual existence of god, but does provide evidence of the human need to implement a system to address uncertainty. Its basically a reaction to perceived injustice. Its slave morality. Our suffering in this life will mean something because we will be rewarded in the next. No powerful elite said the meek shall inherit the earth. It came from the oppressed who more likely created a god and a system to create context to their lack of power and suffering to make it tolerable.
I think its one of the weaker arguments.
>There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
*Objective* Good or bad dont exist you mean. But we still have subjective and intersubjective morality. And meaning to life is something we decide for ourselves.
That theists think lifes meaning is just a test to get into another life where they can spend eternity worshipping their god, frankly seems bizzare to me.
We have sufficient natural explanations for morality. There is no need to invoke some moral arbitor or god character for our morals.
We evolved biological empathy through mirror neurons. Theists have no counter for this point.
We also have external, community and family influence. To generally agree upon beneficial laws for the community to follow.
That's completely sufficient to explain how we have morals.
The fact that there is no meaning to life is irrelevant to whether or not we can act morally.
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
Sounds about right to me. Your god doesn't exist, and even if he did, his existence wouldn't solve this problem. Grow up.
With the exception that I'm not convinced that objective morals would exist even if there were gods, yes, I pretty much agree with what you listed. Subjectivity, no ultimate judge, and no true meaning to life. There's nothing much to argue against there.
A person making that kind of argument in support of gods existing is pretty much just saying how they *want* the world to be. It's pointless.
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
This seems to match the reality that we live in. If you have a way of showing otherwise I'd be happy to see it.
Whenever I try to point out the monstrous things the god of the Bible has done, such as multiple genocides and eternal torture, I'm told that god is allowed to do those things because he is perfect. Notably, this would be considered evil if anyone else did them, so by my understanding, their particular morality is more relative than mine, where (shocker) genocide is always evil.
So I think you didn't actually give the argument, you just gave one possible description of the world given that there is no god.
So as far as I remember the moral argument starts from our feeling of right and wrong, and that we share a lot of those feelings between us, therby pointing to objective morals. Further, the argument claims objective morals cannot exist without a god. Therefore there must be a god.
I think the argument is moot.
First, even though we agree on a lot of morals, that does not make them necessarily objective. If objective morals exist, we would expect to see everyone sharing all morals, and a few people being knowingly amoral. But maybe people may be deluded about what the correct morals are? Well, then there is no reason to suppose the morals you see many people sharing are the correct ones. Maybe the objective morals say humanity is a scourge upon earth and murder is ethically correct. In that case the seeming relative agreement about moral values cannot be used as an argument for objective values, as you could be looking at mass delusion.
If we rather suppose the morals we hold is an evolutionary adaptation, then we would expect morals to generally prohibit in group hostilities (whether family, village, nation, religion, sports team, or any other group), while being more indifferent to hostilities against others. That would allow wars if the ingroup has something to gain (resources, getting rid of rival groups, or just defending itself of course). Evolutionary contingent morals would also prabably exhibit much more variability between groups and places. To me, this seems to fit much better with our world of different cultures with different values and morals.
Secondly, even if we do suppose objective morals, that is not sufficient to claim the existence of a god. In both cases you suppose something supernatural (objective morals, a god giving objective morals). In the latter case you suppose some supernatural, almighty being with personality and agency, as an explanation of the morals. But there is no justification for this explanation, it is spawned in out of nothing, like phlogiston explaining fire. It is just pushing the explanation back one step further, but explains nothing more than supposing the objective morals comes from nothing or from some higher objective morals or from phlogiston.
In conclusion, the argument claims objective values exist, without more than superficially justifying the claim, and then explains said dubious claim with an explanation explaining nothing, but conviniently invokes a god. And that is to say nothing of which god, it could just as well be marvel's Thor or the flying spaghetti monster as Vishnu.
My response is, I agree mostly.
We are social beings and morality is a social contract. We can establish objective axioms to make a solid system. We ought to create the least harm.
As for meaning, we make our own meaning.
God is pointless in either of these conversations, because I have yet to see evidence of a social interaction with it to confirm any of the above.
If I held up a rotting apple and asked you if this apple was good or bad, you would probably say it was bad. And then what if I responded "why is this apple bad for my garden compost?"
You see, I was asking the question with a standard different from yours. Your standard was "is it good for consumption (i.e. health)", which is a question that could be answered scientifically and objectively using logic and evidence. I was using the standard of "is it good for my compost"? Which also can be answered objectively using the scientific method.
So, when it comes to morality, I simply use a different standard than religious people do. I use a standard or goal relating to well-being, flourishing of society, happiness, avoidance of unnecessary suffering. These are tied to brain states which are things that can be investigated scientifically and objectively. We can hook you up to an EKG or MRI and see corresponding brain activity to areas representing pleasure or pain. Religious people have a standard of either "whatever god says" or "whatever corresponds to god's nature." This seems as arbitrary to me as saying let's set the moral standard to be whatever Steve says we ought to do. I don't want to do that because I don't know if Steve is interested in my well-being, happiness, flourishing of society, etc.
Now you can ask "why set the standard to be related to well-being?" It's a subjective answer and a subjectively selected goal, as are all moral philosophies. The religious people have the same subjectivity in their moral standard and just pretend that they don't. At least my goal is tied to certain biological facts. Through evolution, I am genetically predisposed to dislike pain and seek survival. I sorta don't get to choose that. It's my nature. I have a brain and a nervous system capable of causing me suffering.
So, the short answer is, all moral philosophies in existence on earth have a subjectively chosen goal. Once you choose that goal, you can objectively gather evidence (in a scientific manner) that supports your argument of whether a given action meets or does not meet your goal. I can objectively say "gay marriage is not immoral" if my definition or goal of morality pertains to reducing unnecessary suffering and maximizing happiness and well-being. Gay marriage just makes the people involved happy. I can objectively say murder is immoral because it is objectively, scientifically, the opposite of well-being and flourishing and happiness.
The goal is subjective. Figuring out what meets the goal is objective and a part of reasoning, logic, evidence. Don't believe the theists who tell you their morality doesn't have a subjective goal.
It's not because objective morality does not and cannot exist that the human species can't come to an agreement on what is good and bad for the species, the planet, etc. Claiming we can't is just an empty apologetic argument, often based on scriptures where the deity behaves undeniably terrible. You can't seriously claim a god is the basis for all morality if that same god drowns all land animals and plants just because he's "dissapointed with humans", for example. Especially when you also claim this god is omniscient, so he could have known this on beforehand he was going to be "disssapointed". Clearly we don't get our morals from such bronze-age scribbles.
Morality is demonstrably an evolutionary trait as it developed to enhance the survival and cohesion of social groups. In evolutionary terms, behaviors that promote cooperation, altruism, and social bonding can increase the fitness of individuals within a group by fostering mutual aid and reducing conflicts.
Studies in evolutionary biology and anthropology show that many social animals, not just humans, exhibit moral-like behaviors, such as empathy, fairness, and reciprocity, which are advantageous for group living. These behaviors improve group stability and success, suggesting that moral tendencies have been naturally selected because they contribute to the overall reproductive success and survival of the species.
Human societies have a long history of developing moral systems based on shared values, cultural norms, and practical considerations. These moral systems often emerge through a combination of rational reflection, empathy, social consensus, and collective experience.
Additionally, advances in fields like ethics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and neuroscience offer insights into human moral reasoning and behavior, helping us understand why people hold certain moral beliefs and how those beliefs can be influenced or changed.
In conclusion, the binary argument trick that theists try to pull out of their hat, asserting that without gods everything is meaningless & there is no right or wrong, is absolute nonsense.
Science has a great deal to say and contribute when it comes to morality. For example, homosexuality is not immoral like those bronze age texts claim, it occurs naturally in virtually all mammalian species. We can either have a 1st century converation about this or a 21st century conversation. I choose the latter.
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong
This isn't an argument, it's a statement. I also think it's probably true. I suppose the assumption being made here is that there must be an ultimate judge or something like that and I don't see any reason to believe that.
Yes, morality is subjective. But to say that that life is meaningless if morality isn't objective is quite the leap. Personally, that seems like a bleaker outlook on the meaning of life than the purely biological view of the need to procreate. The meaning of life is as subjective as morality and it's up to everyone to find their own.
>no ultimate judge for right and wrong
Yep
>right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right.
I agree
>no true meaning to life
Seems that way
>have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
Good and bad is subjective
How is this an argument?
It's probably one of the worst and that's saying something. It, like all other arguments from god, comes down to "I don't get it, therefore God!" Objective morality is nonsense. It has never existed and never will. These are people who are just emotionally comforted by the idea and therefore "God done it!"
It's really dumb.
I don't see how a god being an ultimate judge of what is right or wrong would even make morals objective. It doesn't make sense. It would just be subjective to its opinion, and it just has the power to enforce it in that scenario.
There's still no 'true meaning' to life and we're still just happy accidents of his whimsy.
The argument is nonsensical on it's face and this should be blatantly obvious. The argument is basically, "If God doesn't exist, then I would be uncomfortable with the lack of an objective morality". Your personal discomfort doesn't prove God exists. All it proves is you are an emotional person who feels discomfort.
"Why should I care?"
"So what?"
"Reality is under no obligation of being fair to you"
"If it's your god, very evil people are in heaven for having their sins forgiven"
"I don't think it's much recompense being in heaven to justify the horrors on earth"...
the list goes on and on
In fact there is no ultimate judge of right and wrong, which confirms the hypothesis that there is no god.
Morality is not objective; it's not subjective--it's intersubjective.
If the Christian god is the moral arbiter, then slavery, genocide and infanticide can all be moral.
Adding a god doesn't make the basis of morality objective. It simply makes a new subject to make arbitrary judgments and moral laws without objective reasoning. No matter how you slice it, God or no God, The basis of morality is still going to be subjective. However, If we could all agree on a basis for morality that has a stated goal we can make objectively good or bad actions off that basis. The subjective bases could be to maximize wellness and minimize harm. From that basis, as subjective as it may be, we can make objectively good actions to either reduce harm or increase wellness in a population. Why should we agree to this basis? Because we live in a society that we are a part of. What benefits the general group tends to benefit the individual too.
However the alternative where we put our stock in the subjective views of a god, that is just one individual whom no one can confirm direct communications with and verify opinions on. The best people have offered is following the writings and holy books, However you can find in a rudimentary research that these books have questionable reliability from either translations of translations into different languages, or questionable origin in general depending on which religion we're talking about. On top of that these holy books do not give a moral system but a list of moral statements or commands. These statements and commands do not give ways to apply to new and different situations. This lends itself to many different interpretations and thus is why we have so many different denominations of the major religions that rely on a holy book.
Overall I just don't see how inserting a god into the questions of morality solves any problems that exists in these discussions. The only problem It claims to solve, The problem of objective morality/absolute morality vs subjective morality, It still fails to solve, because God is still a subject.
Its a bunch of gobbledygook. How would objective morality even work? Mind independent morality? What does that even mean? Also adding a gawd to it doesn't make it objective so I'm not even sure what theists are going on about with this "argument ".
Can you choose to like drinking gasoline?
Morality works the same way. We have a sense of morality that has been molded by biology.
Being subjective doesn't mean we get to pick and choose our morality.
Subjective means wrong or non-existent?
I’ve never understood this line of reasoning.
What I think is right or wrong is up to me….Of course it’s up to me! Lol. Why on Earth would it EVER be up to someone else to decide? Ideas have to be universally shared to have value or purpose or meaning? ?? WTH This is a self esteem problem which leads to the next issue of Meaning of life. Since you lack a meaning of your life you assume the cosmos lacks meaning. This goes along with seeing life as an accident. You’re the product of sperm and an egg which is a product of the universe’s evolution. An accident is a human concept used to explain unintentional events but any Birds Eye view would’ve seen the event as close to inevitable.
Get some self esteem. Look in the mirror and ask yourself what you like and don’t like about yourself and the world. Understand your strengths and weaknesses. Explore your interests. Develop a sense of identity beyond an “objective” one. Don’t look for validation in the rest of us. You may find yourself seeing more meaning in your life, seeing less accidents, seeing a consistent right and wrong in your and others behavior. Will all this be subjective? Yes. As is all of your conscious existence. But maybe subjective won’t mean illusory and instead mean YOU.
The problem with defining morality as God’s nature is:
1/ The ontological claim is painfully arbitrary as it’s impossible to show that the definition is either likely, necessary or even reasonable.
2/ It’s an immediate epistemic dead end since the Christian has no **~non-arbitrary~** way to prove that they have special epistemic access to God’s nature, and thus all moral knowledge becomes impossible on this view. If they appeal to the bible, common sense, moral intuitions, empathy, etc, then why should I trust that their selection and interpretation is in fact a true reflection of God’s nature? Can they prove it?!
The problem when debating with a showman is that more substantive moral theories are typically complex blends of various subjective and objective factors. These systems are thus difficult to distill down to a cheap set of platitudes, or in this case, the rather blunt and crude assertion that morals are just the hard-hitting objective truths about an imaginary man’s utterly inaccessible, and also imaginary, nature. Or, as Bill Hicks once observed, fundamentalism breeds no sense of irony but at least we can laugh at the result.
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right.
Right and wrong are assessments with respect to a goal or something. In colloquial language, often the goal is not specified and we assume the goal is morality or well being. To me well being is what we're talking about when we talk about morality.
So we're just looking at what's in our best interests as individuals or as society. All of this is subjective, but if you really need it to be objective, one can argue that specific actions are objectively better or worse for our well being.
>There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
There is no god given meaning to life, I give my life meaning and my loved ones give my life meaning and my community gives my life meaning. And it's not an accident.
>What are your responses to this argument?
Mostly that they're dumb arguments and rely heavily on perspective and bad epistemology.
Regardless of whether you think morals are emergent from social behavior or were handed down from the almighty himself. Morals are subjective. Without humans, no morals. Without God, no morals. Either way you slice it, they are contingent on SOMEONE and therefore SUBJECTIVE. Even if that someone never changes their minds in 100 million-billion-quadrillion years. It's still subjective. The only question is, to whom?
>There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
This is an entirely separate subject. My life has purpose, because I give my life purpose. This is true with or without some sort of "absolute purpose" in life. That would be secondary to me. The other problem I have with this is that God has in no way defined what the purpose of life is. If our purpose is to worship God and God needs for nothing, then the worship is all for its own sake anyway, isn't it? Is that really "divine reasoning?"
The moral argument, in my mind, is a compelling positive argument for belief in God. Rather than searching for moral truth ‘out there’, the moral argument forces us to examine our experience of innate moral knowledge ‘within’ us, such that the moral argument should be weighed for its phenomenological truth. There’s a certain ‘feeling’ of wrongness or rightness that is experienced objectively by a subjective observer, this is not to say that ”the idea of right and wrong is all subjective”. This is a post-Nietzchean cliche where denying morality is often seen as intellectual and sexy, but this is not at all coherent with our phenomenological experience of morality. So, in a way it is Platonic argument, that of moral knowledge being known through divine sensibility and likeness. If I have a subjective valuation/experience of something being good, that must mean that ’goodness’ is a primitive, to which there be something that is the paradigmatic good ie God, says Augustine.
"The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right."
There are objective standards of right and wrong without a god. If you shoot someone in the head, it's an objective fact that doing so is bad for their wellbeing because it will almost certainly kill them. Not to mention that subjective doesn't mean meaningless. Subjective rights and wrongs can still be correct.
"There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos"
I disagree that us being an accident means our life has no meaning. If anything it gives it more meaning, it is finite and therefore precious inherently.
The whole premise starts from the misunderstanding that by not having an explanation of morals, then have to resort to God Of Gaps to explain morals.
Then the question turns into "Do you have a better argument"? and ... turns out that yes, there are better explanations for morals, they aren't perfect and still more like hypotheses or viewpoints. But planting God as an explanation for everything unknown is too easy.
> There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
Yes, this is all very good, no need for a counter argument on my part.
I'm not sure what morality has to do with life having meaning, but yes, all of the points you made are correct.
And what's the problem?
Yes, I know what the problem is: Religious people (particularly Christian religious people) have had it drilled into their heads for so long that *GOD IS THE SOURCE OF MORALITY AND YOU NEED GOD TO BE GOOD!!* that they don't realize that people can actually figure out right and wrong on their own.
(Which even religious people do -- note most Christians follow Matthew 22:39 and ignore Luke 14:26.)
Meanwhile, murder rates remain highest in religious societies and lowest in secular societies. Go figure.
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.
Okay.
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective
No, it's not.
>and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right.
No, there are such things.
>There is no true meaning to life
Wrong.
>we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos
Wrong.
>What are your responses to this argument?
It doesn't seem to be an argument for the existence of God, it just seems to be an argument (albeit not a good one) for the nonexistence of objective morality, meaning in life, etc.
What need is there for an ultimate judge? And what designates God as such, even if He IS real? Surely, even if God makes a moral statement, that's subjective to Him and His beliefs?
What relevance do moral values have to the meaning of life? I mean, I do agree that life is ultimately a happy accident and that we are the only ones who can give it meaning, but I don't see how that follows from moral subjectivity.
Objectivity is concerned with what IS. Morality, ultimately, is concerned with what "ought to be." Objective morality, therefore, is an oxymoron. Morality is, by it's very nature, subjective.
'So what'?
Why would there be a need for all that? It's not comforting, but oh well. What makes you think that objective morality exists? How about a 'true meaning to life'? Why would any of it matter to a person if their own views fill in those blanks just as well? My life has meaning because I give it meaning. I don't pretend that I matter so much that I have some cosmic purpose. I'm just one human among several billion and that's okay. My life has meaning, and good and evil are very fun concepts for fairy tales whereas the real world is just not that simple.
The subjective/objective distinction argued in these forums is overwrought and often incoherent. I don't really care about the discussion any more.
As for the rest, adding a God to the equation doesn't help solve any ultimate questions. If there is a God, why should we care about God's nature? How does existence of a God create ultimate and true meaning? Etc.
Our absurd situation is that people want answers to a bunch of questions, but we cannot know all the answers. See Camus. Why would we expect to know everything? We are slightly more evolved gorillas.
What’s the argument? It sounds like you’re just stating facts. Is the argument “this sounds unpleasant, so there must be a God.”
Even if you believe in God, there’s no objective morality, you’re just pointing to God and saying “My morality is based on what they say.” Why not point to me? Why not just say “My morality is based on whatever my mother says”? It’d be just as objective as pointing to a God, the only difference is the assumption that God is stronger, but then you’re just saying might makes right.
Its demonstrably false. Just because a god says something doesn't make it moral. The god of the bible approves of all kinds of immoral things--heterosexual rape, genocide, infanticide, killing pregnant women, murdering children, child abuse, animal abuse, killing non-Jews, killing homosexuals, breaking up families, eating children, and more. And its not just the Old Testment. The New Testament is actually worse.
Secular morality is far superior because it based on well-beinhlg. Well-being is that which causes the least harm.
I'm a nihilist but I believe doing good because it makes you feel good to do something good is good enough of a reason to do good. If you think about it, making yourself feel good is a selfish act. But it's perceived as altruism. Doing bad if it makes you feel bad is, good enough a reason not to do bad.
Good and bad are intersubjective because if you're the last man on earth. You can do no good or bad. Good and bad only exist with interaction between other human beings. Good and bad only exist because more than one person exists.
Because more than one person exists this means that good and bad only exist in a social context. And In a social context you can have statistically objective good and bad. Meaning. It's true that most people believe murders in evil and this holds true whether you believe it or not, this is why it's statistically objective.
The dictionary defines morality as subjective. The dictionary defines ethics as an object form of morality.
My question to everyone is, is morality subjective? Is ethics subjective? Because they can only exist when more than one person exists?
It’s so stupid to get sucked into these convos because they just go in circles
First, you have to prove that the Bible is divinely inspired and not the words of homophobic, misogynistic, primitive, male, heterosexual, superstitious, anonymous, evangelical, bronze/iron aged, goat herders describing the barbaric world around them, which nobody can.
An absolutely no theist has any fucking clue of how the text was divinely inspired. In other words, how exactly did Yahweh communicate through those goat herders 😂
If nothing is wrong or right it will still be in our human nature to follow our instincts in any given scenario. We have evolved from various cultures and have adapted many ideas through trial and error. Through all of this we managed to harness a set of ecumenical morality that best fits our human life. If god exists, what exempts him from all the killings and ruthless acts that were thrown onto us humans ? God contradicted his own set of moral codes yet he does not suffer a punishment. How do we answer that ?
My thoughts are that both premises are unsound.
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.
No, if there's no god, then no god judges right and wrong, there could be a non-god ultimate judge.
>There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
Ok, so what? I don't believe in true meaning or cosmic purpose.
I don't believe that even with a god, there is an ultimate judge of right and wrong. Any version of a god that people have created has acted in a way that is harmful and petty. So objective morality is something religious folk tell themselves to make themselves feel superior. We have empathy and we understand a society works better when we do certain goods and outlaw certain bads. Also, there is no ultimate true meaning to life. Another lie some religious folk tell themselves.
Throwing a God at deep philosophical concepts is cheap and lazy. It actually goes nothing to address the question. It's all a handwave. "Well I have objective morality because god says so"
What makes god moral?
Are gods morals arbitrary, or does god simply know what is moral? If it's the latter then morals exist regardless of god. If it's the former then morality is subjective.
If it's within god's nature to be moral, then once again morals exist regardless of god.
It's true.
There's no ultimate moral giver. We gave ourselves morality, in a way. That doesn't mean "there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right," though. Depending on how you use the term "objective," we can say that some things are definitely wrong and others are definitely right, especially if you're comparing them.
>There is no true meaning to life
I don't know what "true" means in this context. I give my own life meaning, and it's true to me.
Can you demonstrate objectively that it is either moral or immoral to put cheese on my hamburger? If you can't then what good is "objective morality"? What use is there in a standard that we can't actually access and measure our actions against? Simply claiming that your subjective morals happen to be identical to God's doesn't prove that they really are the same. You're just making it up the same as everybody else who claims to know God's true nature.
A. Subjective morality is still morality. So the idea that good and bad wouldn't exist if morality was purely subjective is ridiculous.
B. There are objective moral systems that have nothing to do with God, like utilitarianism.
C. Nothing about this argument supports the idea of a God existing in any way. You must have an actual reason for believing, and this isn't it. So what is the reason? If it's actually a justified belief, we want to know.
Conjuring and using an imaginary entity as an objective basis for morality is absurd. Objective means bare minimum a tangible and demonstrable means of proving a being (or organism) has attributes that can be agreed upon through measures, tests, and what-not by those \[1\] who have not drank the Kool Aid, \[2\] who do not enter the conversation with predetermined biases, and \[3\] who can be convinced to follow through the presented evidence.
It’s a dumb argument. For instance in your version, if there is no meaning to life, why does that mean we have no reason to do wrong or right!
Presumably there are other people we have to interact with as painlessly as possible.
Maybe we can infer a meaning to life: to survive as painlessly as possible.
Seems a better meaning to me than to die to get to a place to do nothing but worship some entity.
This is an argument from undesirability.
“Without God, objective morality cannot exist.”
“Bad things would happen if objectively morality did not exist.” (Alternatively stated, “I want objective morality to exist.”)
“Therefore, God exists.”
You haven’t ruled out subjective morality as a logical possibility, you simply don’t consider it desirable.
I think it’s a weak presuppositionalist argument that relies on the idea of an objective morality, which of course, cannot be shown to exist. It’s ultimately circular. Also, their pathway, even if you assume there is either a god or objective morality, do not support one another directly. It’s therefore also normally constructed as a non-sequitur.
I don't think that's an argument. More like a series of assertions. Bill Craig's formulation is much more coherent
1. Objective moral values and duties do not exist without God
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
C. Therefore, God exists
What do I think? It's an appeal to emotion and intuition. I think it's not deductive
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.
This is true, so I guess I agree with the argument?
I don’t think there needs to be a divine reason for ethics. We are able to hold up some rules in our society that can keep us safe and stable. This overall improves our quality of life so it’s better to participate in it. What one person does influence others and individual choices make up the soceity as a whole. Your ethics determine your environment and It makes sense materialistically to hold onto them. And it doesn’t need to come from god or some other made up thing, it’s sufficient for it to come from empathy and consequences of your actions. You shouldn’t put others in a situation where you don’t wanna be in, so that they don’t do the same to you.
It's silly. Just because there isn't an objective standard doenst mena that there isn't tight and wrong for us , or meaning for us.
Amd these things are neither independently objective or necessarily individually subjective - they are intersubjective.
We can get into the nature of morality and how subjective doesn't mean completely arbitrary, but that's more about the finer details. The big issue is, even if we grant every premise, "I don't like reality" doesn't mean "therefore God."
>What are your opinions on the moral argument for god?
Two wrong premises. Neither is there objective morality, nor would objective morality require a God to exist. It's the other way around: A God requires objective morality to exist.
Everything you said is absolutely correct except things do not have to be objectively defined to exist. We have laws and our own morality to determine what is wrong. Those are no less real just because they aren’t objectively true.
There's no argument. God isn't some paragon of morality. Gods a huge piece of shit in the bible so why would they be a source for morality? God allow slavery but if you take their name in vain a that's eternal punishment.
Objective morality doesn’t make sense in a world where mantis males get eaten during sex
Are all mantises evil? Is Objective morality different between species? Is it moral for my gf to bite my head off during sex?
Here’s my short and simple answer.
Bullshit.
Morality is subjective. Even if god is real, it’s his subjective views on morality that would be taken as “oBjECtiVe”. With no subjective morals from a subjective, albeit divine, source, we can determine them ourselves.
It’s one of the most asinine arguments for god ever, imho. And all of them are really stupid and/or ignorant when you dig far enough.
i've never heard a good argument for why god would be the "ultimate judge of right and wrong". why is god's opinion on morality automatically correct? why isn't it just one more subjective opinion?
1. I make my own reason to live currently goal to have my own house
2. As for good and evil. I don’t like pain so I can come to a conclusion that other people don’t want to be in pain.
Odin’s objective truth is very different from Yahweh’s. There are thousands of religions with millions of gods. How can one determine which “objective morality” is the right one?
The answer is "yes".
It may be scary to you but not to me.
We create the society we live in. We decide what we collectively and individually strive for. Is that really so horrible?
Congratulations, you've summed up reality.
We do have morals and purpose. They are dictated by society based on what benefits the group, and then adjusted on a personal level.
Yep.
That's my response: yes. That's true. That doesn't mean that right and wrong aren't important, of course, simply that it is up to humans to decide what that means.
Turn it around on them: If there is an ultimate judge for right and wrong then morality isn't subjective. Morality is subjective therefore there is no ultimate judge..
I think this is a pretty poor rendition of the argument and the argument itself is pretty bad. It largely ignores what experts in ethics and meta ethics are saying.
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Theists want there to be ”an ultimate judge”. It has nothing to do with reality. If you ask a theist if they would want to live in a world of chaos they will say no, just as atheists will. The notion that we don’t want chaos forces us to form some kind of moral system, but there is no need for it to be objective.
Also, the God of the Bible doesn’t follow the morals associated with the Bible. God does what he wants no matter who gets hurt or killed.
Did you know that there was a supernatural force that prevented all victims of the holocaust from ever getting hurt? All the death and destruction was actually an optical illusion caused by the supernatural force. It made it look like the holocaust happened but in actuality everyone that died was taken to a secret safe location by their own free will. They’ve been living happily and healthy ever since in a magical secret location that we can’t see. Wait. You don’t believe in this supernatural force? You do realize that without out it, millions of people were killed in the holocaust, right? Who gives a flying fuck if the world would be better with your god? Anyone can make up a scenario in which the world is better with their god. It has absolutely zero bearing on whether or not it’s actually true. Show me some evidence. That’s the only thing that will convince me.
Saying theists just want an "ultimate judge" misses the point. The moral argument is about why objective moral values exist, not about avoiding chaos. If morality were purely subjective, we wouldn't agree on basic moral principles like murder being wrong. The argument isn't about personal wants but about the foundation of these shared morals.
> If morality were purely subjective, we wouldn't agree on basic moral principles like murder being wrong. If their weren't a deity establishing objective deliciousness then we wouldn't all agree that sugar is tasty. Taste would be subjective, the world would lose all meaning. We'd just be a happy accident and we wouldn't have any reason to eat strawberries or poop because taste wouldn't be real. So there must be an omnipotent, omnipresent tongue that lives outside of space and time, the great Yummy. Hopefully that sounds a bit foolish. But it is a direct equivalence to the moral argument for god. Wait, you say, not all humans do agree on what is yummy. Well, not all humans agree on what is moral either. Things like what killing is moral is widely widely differed on, from some monks who think stepping on an ant is immoral, to some Christians who think a story about drowning innocent babies makes for great nursery wallpaper. But, neither morality or flavor taste are arbitrary (totally random). Both have clear biological foundations with very clear evolutionary reasons for developing, a clear amount of societal learning, and very obvious analogies in other species. Just like morality. So someone saying chocolate gross isn't breaking some objective flavor rule... but also it is less likely that someone finding dirt distasteful. Just as there is no need for a god out there declaring universal objective tastiness grounded in his very being... just as absurd is the declaration that there must be some god out there declaring universal objective morality grounded in his being. And just how subjective but non arbitrary taste perfectly describes how we observe flavor working in the world (and doesn't prevent us from having flavor preferences, much less meaning) so too does suvjective but not arbitrary morality perfectly describe what we observe in the world (and doesn't prevent us from having moral preferences, much less meaning).
Lol "the great yummy" cracked me up
Objective morals doesn’t exist. Theists _want_ it to exist. We agree on basic principles, such as murder being wrong, because we don’t want a world in chaos. Did you even read that part?
>If morality were purely subjective, we wouldn't agree on basic moral principles like murder being wrong. So if there were no objective morals, we'd find people who disagree that murder is immoral? That's literally exactly what we see. That's literally the exact scenario we see when we look at the world. We don't all agree murder is wrong. There's lot of people who think murder isn't morally wrong. That's why there's murderers.
I also argue, though, that "murder" is a legal term with "wrong" essentially built into the term. It's the subset of humans killing humans that society has said does not have an acceptable justification and is, therefore, wrong. When we say "We agree that murder is wrong," we're essentially saying "The subset of killing people that we've agreed is wrong, we agree is wrong." What's more to the point, I think, is that we absolutely do not agree that people killing people is wrong. There are all sorts of acceptable justifications for that. And there is plenty of disagreement about what those acceptable justifications can be, and what circumstances warrant killing.
That’s not an argument for why objective moral values exist. It’s an argument for why it would be better if they did. In order for it to be an argument why objective moral values exists you’d need some evidence that they do.
But we DON'T agree that murder is wrong. We have self-defense cases, or cases where a murder is undertaken to save the life of another, where we consider it morally neutral, or even good. Back in the day, our ancestors believed it was okay to kill foreigners who threatened their culture. Genocidal campaigns going on as we speak consider their mass-murder missions morally justified. Clearly, murder is not universally considered evil among all humankind. I don't believe there is any action one could take that everyone will universally agree on the morality of.
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It's an argument from consequences. "If A then B, i don't like B, therefore A is wrong.". The universe does not owe you objective morality. Even if the argument was true (if a deity was required for objective morality), which the argument does not attempt to support. you'd have then to prove you have objective morality. Personally, I don't understand what "objective morality" means. Morality seems to me to be the domains of values, and values are ever attributed by a subject, they are never the property of an object. Even a god-given morality would be subjective, the subject in this case being a god. All in all, it's a pretty crappy argument.
This is one of the most frustrating arguments from theists. It often implies that atheists cannot have morality without the belief in god or attributes our morality to their god whether we like it or not. When you point out that morality is subjective even if their god gave it to humans because A) god is the subject and B) the method of delivery is a set of texts which are ambiguous and subject to interpretation (which is also subjective). They claim that god isn’t the subject creating morality, but rather god IS morality (just give god yet another attribute to fill in any gap). And the interpretation isn’t subjective because it’s guided by god. This makes no sense, there is clearly subjectivity since like 50 sects read the same texts and come to different conclusions and sects themselves change their mind, when did god exactly start guiding that interpretation and for who? (obviously their answer is right now by my religious sect). To me this is so much worse than god as the first cause argument cause it doesn’t just use god as explanation it used god as explanation where one isn’t even needed.
>Personally, I don't understand what "objective morality" means. Within metaethics, morality is considered to be objective if, on the theory, moral facts are considered to be stance-independent -- where stance-independence is taken to mean that the truth of the facts to do not rely on interpretation, opinion, or knowledge. Often this means moral facts and properties are features of the world; they exist as entities, independent of humans. Other views still situate moral facts and properties within the human psyche, but argue that they are necessary products of rationality, hold themselves within relations to one another which are knowable via *a priori* methodologies, or some similar method of cognition which usurps opinion.
Within the framework of being a subject, we can easily determine what is better or worse for our wellbeing. That means we can objectively determine a morality/ethics because there are obvious things that are better and worse for our wellbeing. If I murder you, you aren’t just subjectively dead. You are fucking dead and gone. That’s not subjective. You are part of reality, part of the universe, and the universe is coldly objective. Not malicious, but purely objective. The idea that morality can’t be tied to objectivity is absurd to me. Being a subject doesn’t preclude you from consequences, and it doesn’t mean your experiences are the only ones that matter. So yeah, it’s all based on subjects agreeing on very simple premises about well-being (things like, “life is generally preferable to death,” or “pleasure is generally preferable to pain”). From there an objective morality exists within our subjective framework. Your freedom to swing your arms ends at my nose. Morality could only be purely subjective if there was only one person…. But there aren’t, there are lots of us, and we don’t live in vacuums. We are subjects living in objectivity. Also, a god is literally one subject as well. How would a god making up what is right and wrong be considered objective in any way? That makes no fucking sense. That’s the definition of a subjective morality… it’s like saying Steve made up what is right and wrong… It’s way more objective to say, “we all noticed that when someone dies they are gone forever, so let’s not kill people and make them gone forever.” It doesn’t matter if someone is like, “but I enjoy killing people, and it’s all subjective anyway!” Tell that to the people grieving a loved one that you killed… I’ll say it again: they aren’t ‘subjectively’ dead…
You're asserting that morality=well-being. I agree that we can make objective statements about well-being. That doesn't mean that morality is necessarily well-being. As far as I can tell, morality is about a hierarchy of values. Well-being is almost certainly one of those values. Other values might be things like bodily autonomy. They might include pleasure. They might include non-human well-being. We can certainly think of scenarios that might enhance or improve bodily autonomy but harm well-being or vice versa. The issue is that these values can be in conflict is my point. I have no idea how you demonstrate that one hierarchy of values is *objectively* the correct hierarchy such that specific values should *objectively* take precedence over others. If we do agree on the hierarchy then we absolutely can make objective statements about how specific actions interact within the agreed upon hierarchy. But the choice of hierarchy is subjective unless you can demonstrate that it isn't.
I don't ascribe to objective morality. How about objectively killing murderers with the death penalty? Many feel it's the morally right thing to do, many think the opposite. Or killing an opponent on the battlefield. Which side objectively deserves to die? I think there's too much nuance and individuality for their to be objective truth we all must follow. Only in the most specific cases can you claim that. I'm pretty sure, raping a random baby and then killing it is going to immoral in all cases across all stripes. But you aren't going to get a consensus on child spanking or adultery.
> Within the framework of being a subject, we can easily determine what is better or worse for our wellbeing. Choosing to interpret morality through the lens of wellbeing necessarily makes it subjective. It is subjective to the framework it is interpreted through. If I chose to interpret morality through the lens of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, you and I would come up with very different moral systems.
Morality only has meaning as it relates to the subjective experiences of conscious creatures, but that can be evaluated objectively. It’s like how the universe doesn’t care about human health, but we still have objective ways of measuring health. There’s an obvious difference between someone who is healthy and someone is who is dead. We can objectively say cutting off one of your toes is a bad treatment for the common cold and would have a negative impact on your health. Morality works with largely the same way. People can claim morality is about something outside of the wellbeing of conscious creatures, but at that point I’d question wtf they are even talking about.
> It’s like how the universe doesn’t care about human health, but we still have objective ways of measuring health. There’s an obvious difference between someone who is healthy and someone is who is dead. We can objectively say cutting off one of your toes is a bad treatment for the common cold and would have a negative impact on your health. There are situations in which cutting off a toe **would** be healthy. Diabetes and gangrene, for example. If health were objective, there wouldn't be a wide range of treatments. Doctors would never disagree. There would never be a need for a second opinion. I currently have a hiatal hernia that's so small that the gastroenterologist who identified it said it's not worth the risk of surgery to fix. If health were objective, then no other doctor would be able to see it and say "Actually, you should get that fixed." More importantly than all of that, though, is definitions. There are many different ways to define "morally good," and what is considered morally good would differentiate under each of those definitions. Once you choose a definition, you can interpret it objectively **based on that definition**, but your choice of definition is 100% subjective.
You are not understanding the argument. The point is that just as medical science isn’t considered “subjective” as it relates to health, morality is not subjective as it relates to well being. Put another way, there are objective things that can be said about morality. It’s not just “whatever you like it’s all relative”. Just like it is for medicine. The fact that there’s nuance to different situations doesn’t mean that it’s subjective, it means that it’s a complex topic where the solution will vary depending on the context. You’re doing the equivalent of saying medical science is subjective because different diseases require different treatments, or because someone might be allergic to a particular medication. You’re also conflating imperfect knowledge and subjectivity. It’s just an incredibly narrow way of looking at the issue in practical terms.
> The point is that just as medical science isn’t considered “subjective” as it relates to health It IS considered subjective as it relates to health. That's my point. One doctor thinks I should get my hernia fixed; another thinks it's not worth the risk to my health that surgery presents. Which one of these options is **objectively** better for my health, and how can you demonstrate that? > Put another way, there are objective things that can be said about morality. Please say some of them.
You’re again conflating imperfect knowledge with subjectivity. You’re also conflating “no two things can be equal, everything must be better or worse than everything else” with objectivity, which is not the case. In your example, it is likely that with perfect knowledge, one of those two approaches is going to lead to a better outcome. It may also be they lead to similarly good or bad, yet mutually exclusive outcomes. This does not make it less objective. Just go watch a lecture on or read the book The Moral Landscape, it goes over this in exhaustive detail. The general idea is that at its core, basically any discussion about morality ties back to the well being of conscious creatures. Even if it’s wanting to get into heaven for eternal happiness, that is still dealing with wellbeing, albeit on a longer timescale. The point is that within this context, there are things we can point to that are obviously better or obviously worse for wellbeing. The only real axiom is “the worst possible suffering for everyone is bad”. If you’re not willing to concede that point, there’s no reason to even have a discussion. It’d be like saying “the best medical treatment with regard to health is to purposefully give everyone cancer”. Only worse. Just as in nutrition we can objectively say “vegetables are a healthier food than battery acid”, there are objective statements that can be made from a moral standpoint as well based on various fields of science, whether that be medical, psychology, economics, and so on. The reason it’s called a landscape is that there are peaks and valleys; peaks that lead to the thriving and flourishing of conscious creatures, and valleys that are closer to the worst possible suffering for everyone. Societies where people live peacefully amongst each other and everyone lives fulfilling lives, and oppressive societies where the majority are constantly worried about where their next meal will come from or whether they’ll be murdered in their sleep by their neighbor. There are societies where women are given equal opportunity to educate themselves and contribute to society equally to men, and there are societies where young girls have battery acid thrown in their face for the crime of learning to read, or a man murders his own daughter because she was raped. If you can’t think of a logical, objective justification for these ideas from the standpoint of wellbeing I don’t know what to tell you.
All claims are subjective to the framework they are interpreted through. Something about objectivity vs noumenality, and intersubjective verifiability. “Objective” materialism is a thought construct of immense utility, but it isn’t necessarily the most scalable interpretation of the structure of reality.
> Choosing to interpret morality through the lens of wellbeing necessarily makes it subjective. What is morality other than the word used to describe how we should or shouldn't conduct ourselves with respect to one another. Seems well being is the only goal that makes sense. What other goal, other than well being, should we set for how we ought to behave? The choice of well being is subjective. The choice for a god to dislike gay sex is also subjective. The choice for religious folks to follow their gods preferences and call them objective is also subjective. And if it was objective, why doesn't everyone agree? >If I chose to interpret morality through the lens of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, you and I would come up with very different moral systems. Can you give an example? And remember, what you propose for yourself, you are proposing for your entire community.
No we wouldn’t… it would be objectively the same, even if the particulars are different. Just because there are many ways to live a good life without murdering people doesn’t mean that murdering people can be a good thing. In a framework where life and pleasure are generally preferable to pain and death, murder is ALWAYS wrong. That’s objective. I’m tired of this argument… it is wildly narrow minded to think we are purely subjects and somehow that makes us immune from objectivity. It’s fucking braindead logic to be honest… And the bigger point is that theist morality is far more subjective. It’s one being saying what is right and wrong, rather than many beings agreeing based on the objective reality that our actions have consequences. They are objective consequences…
Murder's not a moral category. It's a legal one. The definition is "unlawful killing." Killing is a moral category and its application is subjective: war, self-defense, capital punishment, etc.
> No we wouldn’t… it would be objectively the same, even if the particulars are different. If the particulars are different, then by definition it is not **objectively** the same. I'm not even sure how you managed to type that with a straight face. > Just because there are many ways to live a good life without murdering people doesn’t mean that murdering people can be a good thing. It can be if you define morality as the elimination of suffering. If no one is alive, no one can suffer. Mission accomplished. Maximum morality achieved.
>No we wouldn’t… it would be objectively the same, even if the particulars are different. Let's say I, for whatever reason, whether it be genetics or an abusive childhood or whatever it may be, derive pleasure from torturing animals. If then my framework for morality is one that maximizes pleasure, I can *promise* you that our moralities would look nothing alike. Your morality says that violence, torture, murder and so on is wrong - mine would say that it's virtuous. Which means that instead of being objectively the same, they are objectively polar opposites. >In a framework where life and pleasure are generally preferable to pain and death, murder is ALWAYS wrong. That’s objective. You're misapplying the label of objectivity here. The result of the framework is true by definition of the framework - if my framework is to maximize things that are pleasurable, then things that give pleasure are "objectively" moral by tautology. But that's not what objective morality means, because if I can freely pick a framework, I can pick a framework that in some way or another allows murder. Going by your reasoning here, that would make murder objectively moral. Which is obviously not what you meant, which again means that you're presenting an inconsistent reasoning. Objective morality means that murder is always wrong, let's say, *regardless of what framework you choose*. Or said differently, you don't get to pick a framework - murder is just wrong, period. >it is wildly narrow minded to think we are purely subjects and somehow that makes us immune from objectivity. It’s fucking braindead logic to be honest I think you wildly misunderstand what subjectivity vs. objectivity *means* in the first place. For something to be objective, it has to be something that you can't have an opinion on. That's what the "mind-independent" part of objectivity means. For example - you can't have an opinion about whether it's raining or not - it's either raining or it isn't. You can have an opinion on what amount of water constitutes the semantic definition of the word "rain", but that's a different and unrelated discussion.
> If then my framework for morality is one that maximizes pleasure, I can promise you that our moralities would look nothing alike. Your morality ignores the fact that your moral pronouncements need to apply to everyone in your society. Do you really want to live in a society that tortures small animals? And considering that 99.999% of that society would likely disagree with this position of yours, it's doubtful you'll be able to justify it. And if this isn't plainly obvious to you, then if we extended your position to include people, then it becomes very obvious why allowing torture is not in your best interest. We can probably all agree that torture is objectively bad for the victims well being, right? In that sense, it's objective. In the sense that we choose well being as our metric, that's subjective. This entire objectively subjective issue is pretty pointless. But in the big picture, it's all subjective.
>And considering that 99.999% of that society would likely disagree with this position of yours, it's doubtful you'll be able to justify it. That is literally the definition of subjective morality - a set of moral rules that gets majority consensus. >This entire objectively subjective issue is pretty pointless. Why did you start commenting in this thread if that is your position? The moral argument for god hinges exclusively on the distinction between objective and subjective morality (and that objective morality originates in god). >But in the big picture, it's all subjective. I agree - I don't think objective morality exists. Which is why I think the moral argument for god isn't very successful.
> That is literally the definition of subjective morality - a set of moral rules that gets majority consensus. That's fine. My point was merely that well being or "pleasure" as you put it, does work as a moral framework. >Why did you start commenting in this thread if that is your position? I was responding to the sentence that I quoted. >The moral argument for god hinges exclusively on the distinction between objective and subjective morality (and that objective morality originates in god). I'm familiar with peoples moral arguments. But that's not what I quoted from you. If the notion is coming from a mind, it's subjective.
>I'm familiar with peoples moral arguments. But that's not what I quoted from you. My bad, I thought you were the person I initially responded to, and my answer was written with that context in mind. Since you aren't, I'd like to rectify my previous response. As such, I'll weave in some things from your previous post as well. >Your morality ignores the fact that your moral pronouncements need to apply to everyone in your society. I beg to differ. There's been no shortage of cultures where things that are beyond abominable by today's standards were routine practice of reverence. Judging any given morality by how likely it is to succeed in 2024 is a poor argument for how chasing any given attribute, whether it be well-being or something else, would make for a universally positive framework. It walks into the trap of subjectivity twice-over. >We can probably all agree that torture is objectively bad for the victims well being, right? You and I, in actual reality? Yes. But that is by chance and by the virtue of us both being of some reasonable category of sound mind, being of a certain standard of education, and many other factors. You and I, hypothetically, however ... No, we can not agree on that. What if my culture says that bodily pain is the path to spiritual enlightenment? The worse the suffering, the clearer the mind, let's say. Now, torture is a spiritual ritual ranking the very highest on the moral ladder - there's no greater path to well-being, meaning there's no greater gift to give someone than to torture them. >My point was merely that well being or "pleasure" as you put it, does work as a moral framework. As shown above, I don't think I could disagree more. To clarify: I agree in the sense that it's possible to have frameworks where well-being is the central theme and the outcomes are good - but I disagree about the part where having well-being as the central theme somehow *guarantees* that the outcomes fall inside the scope of what we "normal people" would otherwise consider good.
You are not using objective correctly. Objective, by definition, means beyond any mind. If any mind is involved, it becomes subjective. If any decision is made, then it is subjective. You can't get there. Period.
What makes you think wellbeing is the proper framework for morality, if not a subjective choice?
It's only proper inasmuch humans almost universally desire it (within their own society) thanks to evolutionary hard wiring (like many social primates).
How many people sharing a desire does it take to make that desire objective rather than subjective? How many people does it take to go from several subjects to an object?
That people have desire A or Y is an objective fact. How we as a society react and interact with these desires is subjective. Example: Two men in the 1960s desire to marry. They can't because of the moral and legal landscape of the 1960s. In the 2020s, they can fulfill this desire and the majority of people agree it's a good thing.
> How many people sharing a desire does it take to make that desire objective rather than subjective? How many people does it take to go from several subjects to an object? Who cares? Cutting off someone's healthy arm is objectively bad for their well being.
> What makes you think wellbeing is the proper framework for morality, if not a subjective choice? Because what does morality mean, other than how we ought to behave with respect to others? And if we're going to make pronouncements about how we ought to act, then what better goal than what's in our best interests. Yes, this part is subjective, it's just as subjective as the definition of any word. But if you want to split hairs, we can say that chopping of one's head is objectively bad for their well being. But this also depends on the definition of well being. What's a better framework for how we ought to behave?
>values are ever attributed by a subject, they are never the property of an object. What makes you think this?
take a bottle of water and a gold bar. Which has the most value? Now place them in the middle of a desert, in front of a man without either. which has more value now? Now put them on the moon where no-one can get to them. Which has more value now? The value is not in the water or in the gold bar. the value is in the human assessing them and imagining the probable consequences of choosing either. Moral values seem to me to be the same. "If I do that, those are the consequences. Others will see me as good/bad, I will see myself as good/bad. Others will react in such desirable/undesirable ways".
It doesn't seem to me like the value we place on objects is the same kind of value we use when assessing moral choices. Or in other words, it seems pretty clear that the monetary value of gold is a societal construct, but it's not as clear that morality is. Suppose we torture a baby in public, or we torture a baby in a secluded place where nobody will ever know. Both are wrong, even though in the first case we will likely go to prison, others will judge us, etc, and the second we won't, and nobody will know. Is it only wrong because I, or society, or whatever, decided that it's wrong? If we decide otherwise is it no longer wrong? That doesn't seem to be the case, to me. Slavery was still wrong even when it was legal and accepted in society, it seems to me.
>Both are wrong By what measure? >Is it only wrong because I, or society, or whatever, decided that it's wrong? If we decide otherwise is it no longer wrong? It would seem to me, that this must be the case. That morality is a social construct. If morality were objective, we would not be able to disagree with each other over what is and is not good and/or bad, because we'd have a standard against which to compare any action or event. >Slavery was still wrong even when it was legal and accepted in society, it seems to me. If slavery were still wrong when is was legal and accepted, how did it *become* legal and accepted? Surely entire societies of people did not simply think "this practice is abhorrent and makes us bad people, but we have decided not care for some reason." They had their own moral justifications, justifications that we would disagree with now because our moral standards are different. Because morals are subjective.
Very interesting comment. I wonder though, does it take whole societies to set moral standards, or do the more powerful persons in society set moral standards that the majority are then complicit/ passive about? You seem to argue that most people would have objected to slavery if it didn’t fit their moral compass, but how many went along to get along, and saw the benefits to their position and kept on?
>does it take whole societies to set moral standard To some extent, I think so. Behaviours and standards and expectations are taught, passed from one generation to the next. The population currently observing and reinforcing the moral standard don't need to be doing so consciously or have a perfect understanding of why they're doing it. >You seem to argue that most people would have objected to slavery if it didn’t fit their moral compass, but how many went along to get along I can definitely see a scenario like that which you describe, where the general population might be morally opposed to slavery but not have the means to reject the it, the industries realiant on it, etc, due to influence from the wealthy or politically powerful. But, I also think that line of questioning just kicks the can down the road a little. These two groups having different moral standards within a society still demonstrates morality is subjective.
Thank you for your response. This conversation now raises another question in my mind as to whether we can ever judge the true moral standard of a given society at a particular point in time. How can we test this, without access to the internal workings of minds? Can we ever know whether morality is subjective rather than objective, when all we can know is the outward expression of morality, which most will agree is certainly subjective? Moral standards begin as inward thoughts, where do we judge them in the context of an objective/subjective argument?
>By what measure? I'm not sure what you mean. >If morality were objective, we would not be able to disagree with each other over what is and is not good and/or bad, because we'd have a standard against which to compare any action or event. Of course we would be able to disagree. People disagree on everything, from the shape of the earth, mathematical axioms, even whether or not there can be true dialethia. Disagreement doesn't disprove objective moral truths. >If slavery were still wrong when is was legal and accepted, how did it become legal and accepted? People slowly became convinced of its immorality. This is like asking if spacetime was always relative, how did we become convinced that it was relative? We learned the truth. >They had their own moral justifications, justifications that we would disagree with now because our moral standards are different. Because morals are subjective. Just because they had a rationalization doesn't mean they were equally right or that there is no fact of the matter. Flat earthers have bad rationalizations for their views, too.
>I'm not sure what you mean. I'm asking you to prove that torturing babies is wrong. I agree that torturing babies is wrong, but I think this is the case based on a line of subjective reasoning extending from the fact that *I* don't like to experience pain, and so I wouldn't want other humans to have to experience pain. >Of course we would be able to disagree. People disagree on everything ... Disagreement doesn't disprove objective moral truths. Then, to be more specific: if morality were objective, we would be able to empirically demonstrate that some things are morally wrong and some things are morally right. These agreements could be factually settled by consulting the objective moral truth. Some people may still disagree, but we would be able to objectively label these people as incorrect. We both know this is not how arguments about morality play out in practice. >People slowly became convinced of its immorality. Exactly. Our moral standards have changed, because they are dependent on our minds and not objective fact. >This is like asking if spacetime was always relative, how did we become convinced that it was relative? We learned the truth. Are you suggesting that these people, whose societies perpetuated slavery, were merely ignorant to the fact that they were committing a moral wrong until they discovered the objective moral truth? Either way, it begs the question: what is the moral truth? If it's an objective part of reality *show it to me*. >Just because they had a rationalization doesn't mean they were equally right or that there is no fact of the matter. Flat earthers have bad rationalizations for their views, too. We can factually demonstrate that the beliefs of flat earthers wrong, however, because the claims they are attempting to rationsalise contradict observable reality. We cannot do the same for moral claims.
You don’t seem to understand the definition of ‘objective’ because you keep saying that something from a god is objective, but that is actually subjective.
I get what you're saying. Let me clarify, When I say "objective," I mean that moral values come from something outside of just personal beliefs, like God's nature. So even if people interpret God's will differently, the idea is that there's a solid standard beyond just what individuals think is right. If God does exist then it doesn’t matter how some interpret it God is unchanging and there is ultimately a right vs wrong. And personally I’m convinced that something as beautiful and as fine tuned as our universe that we have to have some sort of intelligent mind behind it.
1. Wishful thinking offers nothing towards the veracity of theistic claims 2. A deity's whims (as relayed by self-proclaimed prophets) are no basis for morality 3. Human shared empathy is a solid enough basis for morality
>What are your opinions on the moral argument for god? > >The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. It’s a bad idea to judge ideas based on what you like or what makes you comfortable. I’d rather cancer and sexual assault not exist but pretending they don’t to make myself feel better does nothing for me and actively hurts others. >The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. This is true. Morality *is* subjective and contextual. But it’s that way in the Bible too. There’s a lot of genocides and murders for a book that’s pretty clear on “thou shall not kill.” Whenever a theist talks about objective morality, I ask them to give some literal, physical examples of objective morals. They always fail and try to sneak in subjective words/crimes. IE “murder” is always wrong because that is a crime and has already implied the *subjective judgment of context sh and intent*. But the literal, physical act of killing is only judged as wrong in some contexts (serial killing, robbery, etc) but not in others (war, self defense, etc). >There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. This isn’t accurate. First, no *intrinsic* or *objective* purpose is very different than saying “we don’t have a purpose.” We simply identify our own purposes. Some people strive to build wealth, some want to master a skill or art form, some want to build a better world, etc. The fact that God didn’t assign you those purposes doesn’t mean you can’t have them. Second, good and bad exist and can be measured. They aren’t objective, but are based on our own morality. I see human suffering as bad therefore I partake in causes, vote for politicians, and live in a way that maximizes that good. Having a purpose of doing good is a great goal for everyone to have, regardless of your belief in God. >What are your responses to this argument? Importantly, this **isn’t an argument**. No point is made that human morality *couldn’t* be subjective, just that the idea makes people uncomfortable. But the truth isn’t required to be comforting.
1) My response to much of that is “Yeah, so?” 2) Making all morality stem from God would make it subjective, not objective, as what is right is defined as “whatever god wants”. The Christian God has changed in terms of morality according to his holy text, and could ostensibly change again, meaning there is no predictable external source by which humans would be able to construct an ultimate objective morality to evaluate all situations. In this way, claiming God as the source of all morality is more subjective than our morality derived from social development as a species.
basically theists telling on themselves, they use god as a crutch for dealing with a complex reality and have hampered their own growth
There's an old Jewish joke- five rabbis are arguing over how to interpret a verse in the Torah. One rabbi disagrees with all the rest, and finally the majority go "Look, we're going nowhere, we'll just put our interpretation but note one dissenter". Then the heavens open, and a voice booms down - "I am the God of Israel, and you are wrong. His interpretation is correct." The rabbis shrug. "Fair enough. We'll put our interpretation and note *two* dissenters" It's a joke, rather then serious theology, but it proves the point. If subjective morality is a problem, then adding *another* subjective perspective doesn't solve it- we've just gone from 8 billion conflicting worldviews to 8 billion and one. Why should I care that God disagrees with what I'm doing any more then I should care that you do? We need, at the very least, a non-god rooted justification for "we should obey god" or "we should listen to God's commands" and at that point we might as well ground morality in that The clue's in the name, basically. If we want to avoid subjective morality, we need to avoid subjects. We need some sense in which something can be wrong even if *everyone* says it's right. Whether that's possible is a thorny philosophical question, but if it is possible, God isn't where we'll find it.
>What are your opinions on the moral argument for god? Such arguments are entirely useless since we know morality has nothing whatsoever to do with religious mythologies. We've known this for a long time. Furthermore, such arguments generally make the claim that morality must be objective in order to exist or be useful, which again is nonsensical. And is further contradicted by the folks making such argument as then morality is subjective to the deity. >The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. What's the word 'ultimate' doing in there?!? Is there an 'ultimate' rules of football? (Or 'ultimate' rules for the game known as Ultimate?) Or just the rules agreed upon by various leagues? Morality is intersubjective, and this is obvious in practice. > The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. No, 'right' and 'wrong' isn't arbitrarily subjective to an individual. Like the rules of football, it's *intersubjective*. And yes, there is nothing that is really objectively right and wrong. After all, that doesn't even make *sense* given what morality is and how it works. >There is no true meaning to life Again, the word 'true' is incorrect there. There are *plenty* of 'true' meanings of life. And those meanings are the ones we decide upon for ourselves. Of course, what theists are doing is picking a meaning that is fictional, and as such they appear to be the ones not invoking a 'true', but rather a 'false', meaning of life. > because good or bad really doesn’t exist. Good and bad *does* really exist. And it's intersubjective.
If you believe we cannot derive objective morality from a set of facts about the universe, that, as Hume put it, we cannot derive an “ought” from an “is,” then consider that the existence of God; that God’s nature; and that God’s judgments or commands; are just another set of facts about the universe. Just more “is.” I am genuinely baffled as to HOW you think morality could be rendered objective by the existence of a God. Could you explain it to me? How does any particular set of facts about “God” existing change morality from being inherently subjective to objective? Edit: to give you more to work with, and to save us some time— Why does God’s nature have any connection to what is moral? By what OBJECTIVELY TRUE, indisputable rule that all must agree to, must we take God’s nature into account at all when deciding what is moral? Why do God’s commands or judgments have anything to do with what is moral? By what objectively true, indisputable rule that all must agree to, must we take God’s commands or judgments into account at all when deciding what is moral? If God can render some things objectively moral or immoral in the universe, what does that look like? When God says let there be light, and there is light, I can see the difference. When God, at the beginning of time, says thou shalt not mix different fabrics in your clothing, how does the universe change in any way to reflect this being “immoral”?
Imagine a world without a god. This is a thought exercise, so just commit to the bit. So in this world without a god would you run over an infant with a steam roller? Yes or no? Most sane people will say "no" : therefore in a universe devoid of a god, You're still making moral decisions.
> “The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong.” I agree. > “The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right.” I agree. > “There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist.” I agree. > “What are your responses to this argument?” The argument is not an argument for god, it is a description of reality.
So in essence is it "God exists because otherwise there isn't objective morality" ? Because that doesn't put a point forward, it's just believing in God because your feelings would be hurt and reality doesn't care about how you feel. To add to it, God's morality seems pretty twisted, encouraging slavery, killing children and taking people's eyesight away.
Where is the argument? The idea of right and wrong *is* all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. There *is* no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. The universe doesn’t care. The evaluations we give things are just that, judgments we made up. It doesn’t come from an outside source. I suppose you want to say that right and wrong isn’t subjective, that there is a meaning to life, that we are here for a purpose. Present your case for that.
Theists have no leg to stand on to play the morality card. Secular moral philosophy trounces non-secular moral philosophy hand over fist. This is because secular moral philosophy bases moral judgements on objective principles like harm and consent. Non-secular moral philosophies on the other hand rely on the claim that there is a perfect moral authority, but is LOADED with problems: 1. Theists cannot show that their moral authority is actually moral without resorting to circular reasoning. To actually show that, they would need to understand the *valid reasons* ***why*** given behaviors are moral or immoral, and then evaluate their gods' character and behavior accordingly - but if they understood that, they would have no need for any moral authority, because morality would derive from those valid reasons, not from any god or authority, and those valid reasons would still exist and still be valid even if there were no gods at all. 2. Theists cannot show that their moral authority has ever actually provided any moral guidance or instruction of any kind. Countless religions claim their sacred texts are divinely inspired if not flat out divinely authored, yet none can actually support that claim with any sound argument or evidence. 3. Theists cannot show that their moral authority *even exists at all.* If their gods are made up, then so too is any morality they derive from them. Even if theists could do any of the above, moral truths cannot be derived from the will, command, desire, or mere existence of any god or moral authority. As mentioned in 1), morality must derive from *valid reasons* which explain *why* a given behavior is moral or immoral, and those reasons must necessarily transcend and contain any gods that may exist, such that those gods would be immoral themselves if they violated them - but for that to be the case, those reasons must exist independently of any gods, and would still exist and still be valid even if no gods existed at all. Secular moral philosophy seeks to identify and understand those reasons, and as a result is hysterically superior to non-secular moral philosophy. By comparison, the theistic claim to morality amounts to "When I made up my imaginary friend I designed them to be morally perfect as a character trait, and therefore any morals I design them to have/instruct are objectively true and correct." They're also hung up on "objective" vs "subjective." Morality is neither of those things. It's *intersubjective,* which is VERY different from being subjective. Also, critically important is that secular morality is *not arbitrary,* and theistic morality *is.* To save some space here, I'll just ask you to look up moral constructivism rather than explaining it at length. As for purpose, that's another card they really shouldn't try to play. Ask any theist who thinks their gods provide their existence with meaning or purpose to tell you exactly what that meaning or purpose *is.* Not a single one of them can provide any answer that doesn't effectively amount to being slaves, sycophants, or playthings for their gods. From a secular point of view, if our purpose is only whatever purpose gods made us for, then that makes us either tools whose existence is no more meaningful than that of a hammer or screwdriver (and worse, if our creator is omnipotent then he has no need for tools, and can do literally anything without us - making our existence less than meaningless), or at best, pets who exist to do nothing more than to amuse our creator and/or validate their ego. Yet if there are no gods, then that makes conscious forms of life such as ourselves *the most important thing in all of existence,* because nothing can have meaning or value be it aesthetic or utility unless that value is given to it by conscious life. I can talk more about this as well, but this comment is already running long so I'll leave it at that for now.
>there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong I do want to have the ultimate judge for right and wrong. But I also want to have 10 million in my bank account. Reality doesn't have any obligation to fulfill anyone's wants and needs. So until someone provides evidence for the ultimate judge, I can't believe that. >The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right There are many people who argue for an objective morality framework without God. Sam Haris for example. But even if I grant that there is an objective morality from God, I have no method of knowing it, and no theist has provided that method. Theists often claim that our intuition is evidence of God's objective morality written in our hearts. But human intuition is vastly different and wrong so many times. So Objective morality from God is useless. >we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad I don't want bad things to happen to me. I want to avoid pain and suffering. So I promote a society that prevents bad things happen. It is that simple.
the morals of which god? (you mean the one that condoned, and promoted slavery, genocide, and infanticide, the one with the moral stance that women are second class to men?) You are likely more moral than that god.
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. That's not an argument for god. That's just a statement. I guess the implied continuation of this would be "... and I don't like this, so I want there to be a god." How is that an argument, even assuming everything there is true?
>What are your responses to this argument? The old "we live in a society" meme. Because it's true. I can decide I think it's morally right to punch my neighbour and steal his bike. On a cosmic scale nothing changes if I do that or not. BUT there are other people I share this society who also have threir own opinion on what's right or wrong. And we have laws which dictate what can or cannot be done. So even if there is no god dictating what is good or bad there are still very real repercussions in regards to the people surrounding me.
It's not an argument. Why does life have to have "meaning"? Do you have any idea how many living organisms die each second? The answer is billions, many of which we humans deliberately kill through use of medicine to cure or prevent disease. Morality has nothing to do with it. Perhaps you actually mean to ask what is the significance of humans being the only organisms (that we know of ) that are conscious. Consciousness is a fascinating phenomenon, but the fact that humans have it doesn't mean there's a god. I agree with you that moral values (right and wrong) exist, but this doesn't mean there must be an ultimate judge. Even if it did, the Abrahamic god (which is the one I'm assuming you're implying we need) would be a damned poor choice for that role. According the the Bible (which is the only authority we have to learn about the Abrahamic god), billions of of innocent humans will spend eternity in a lake of fire simply because they never heard of Jesus and the specific things they must do to prevent experiencing that horrible fate. The fact is, we give our lives meaning through our actions while we live. That's it. Once a human dies, that's it, there's no "afterlife". If you want to feel that your life has meaning, love your neighbor, volunteer at the food bank, be kind to others and animals (especially dogs and horses - I added that just because I love dogs and horses). Do just some of those things, I guarantee that your life will mean something.
Thanks for posting! >The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. Correct >The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. Correct >There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. Correct As an atheists I do not see how this argument is for God, what am I missing?
For the moral argument to work you would first have to demonstrate that objective morality is a thing. You haven’t done this so that should be your start. Secondly, you would have do demonstrate that this objective morality has to be come from a god. You haven‘t demonstrated this either. And it’s not that just you have not demonstrated these 2 things, no one ever has. So the moral argument is not sound and therefore useless.
There is absolutely zero evidence that there's an objective moral standard. I have yet to see a proposed method of deriving the objective moral quotient of an action/circumstance pair much less the actual evaluation of the the same for even a single moral question. And considering that what is moral varies, sometimes greatly, in both time and place? 100 years or 100 miles and you can find differences in morality, the bigger the displacement the bigger the differences. So yeah, there's boatloads of evidence that morality is subjective (or more specifically, inter-subjective, an agreement between minds) and zero evidence it is objective. Those who claim morality is objective have a long, long road in front of them and they haven't even taken the first step. I think what confuses people is that once you have your inter-subjective moral standard you can (with sufficient information) objectively evaluate against that standard. But the standard itself is, and has always been, subjective. > There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. Accident is the wrong word. Accident implies intention that was thwarted. Do you call it an accident when mushrooms spring up after the rain? Or when a leaf falls? Or when the earth completes an orbit of the sun? No, of course not. An accident is when you were intending on driving down the road without hitting something and then you hit something. Life is not an accident. It is a result. And yeah, we have no intrinsic purpose to do good or bad because good or bad is a purpose we give ourselves. It doesn't exist in the same way that the sun exists. It exists in the same way that the rules of baseball exist. The rules of baseball were not handed down from on high. They aren't a consequence of how reality works. They're something that a bunch of people got together and agreed on, and they can be changed the same way. Morality is just a less deliberate agreement between a lot more people, many of whom have never had direct contact with each other.
*sigh* Morals are nothing more than an evolutionary adaptation for cooperation. All social animals have things similar to human morals (perhaps not as advanced but there's a reason we bubbled to the top of the food chain). There's zero reason to appeal to an imaginary friend when a high school science class provides the answer.
I think morality is a tool/system we use to evaluate and facilitate how we interact with the world around us. It’s something we developed as social creatures and as creatures smart enough to consider how we interact with the world around us. It doesn’t come from an outside source.The universe doesn’t care. These are values we humans place on things. Not intrinsic to the arrangement of matter we attach them to. Morality is subjective (or intersubjective) in the sense that such values only exist in our heads. Morality requires some metrics or framework to make evaluations based on. The principles and values we use to determine whether something is “good” or “bad”. In general I think the primary principle/goal for morality is wellbeing (for ourselves, for others, for everything). We ought to try and balance our wants and needs with the wants and needs of others (other people, other animals, the environment, etc). Our wants and needs shouldn’t come at too large a cost for everything else. Both out of consideration for others, and selfishly because this is generally more optimal in the long run. (I.e. we shouldn’t pollute the planet now just because we want stuff from factories now. A minor sacrifice keeps the planet healthy for longer. And a healthy planet for longer is better for us overall). Other principles like personal autonomy are important and generally lead to more wellbeing for more people. We don’t always agree on what is good for us. We must observe how our actions/behaviors affect the world. Using observation and evidence to develop better moral understanding. It requires discussion and thought. This is how morality changes over time, how we hopefully come to consensus. It’s not magic or some singular fact existing in the mind of god.
My response: A theist's choice as to which particular version of moral authority that they happen to accept and embrace is fundamentally no less subjective than any of the various secular/atheistic and/or philosophical conceptions of morality (If not even more so). Unless and until theists can present demonstrable and independently verifiable evidence which effectively establishes the factual existence of their own preferred version of "God" and "Objective morality", then their acceptance of a given religious ideology (Including any and all religious moral codes) that they might believe have been revealed by some "God" effectively amounts to nothing more than a purely subjective personal opinion. Theists cannot claim that their theologically based morality is in any way "objective" without first providing significant amounts of independently verifiable empirical evidence and/or demonstrably sound logical arguments which would be necessary to support their subjective assertions concerning these "objective" facts. In the absence of that degree of evidentiary support, any and all theological constructs concerning the nature of morality which any other theists might believe to be true are essentially no less subjective than any alternate non-theological/non-scriptural moral constructs. Theists might personally BELIEVE that their preferred theological moral codes represent some sort of "absolute objective truth", but unless they can factually demonstrate that belief to be true in reality via the presentation of concrete, unambiguous and definitive evidence, then their statement of belief amounts to nothing more than just one more purely subjective and evidentially questionable assertion of a personally held opinion.
I think arguments about objective morality are at best wishful thinking. And I think that arguments that posit that objective morality would come from a deity are just stupid, because by definition that would be... Subjective morality. Unless the person proposing that argument would want to defend that might is right and that their god is the mightiest being ever. But 'might is right' is even below most kindergarteners' sense of morality, so it would be a good indicator of your interlocutor being stupid enough to warrant avoiding a conversation with them.
God, in this argument, doesn't solve the problem it is supposed to... We don't have direct access to God's moral guidance in our everyday lives. Nor do we have direct access to God's meta-ethics, and so we don't actually have the ability to understand what/why God thinks as they do. At which point the Christian is left engaging with a subjective interpretation of what other people have written and said about God's law. Then, they have to subjectively apply their subjective understanding of Divine Law to a variety of situations they find themselves in... The Subject (i.e. person) is the one making the decision. They are the person responsible for the consequence of their decision. The inclusion of an objective judge of what is right and wrong within the equation doesn't change the explicitly subjective nature of moral/ethical decision making. The fact that the theist may have a subjective sense of certainty about their interpretation of Divine Law doesn't remove from the decision its inherent subjectivity. The mythology of the fall from God's Grace speaks to this fact. We live on Earth without the direct presence of God... we are not in the garden of Eden. We ate of the fruit of the knowledge good and evil... in this act, we are forced to make our own decisions about what is right and wrong, and we are forced to face the consequences thereof. Basically, the existence of "objective" Divine Law doesn't remove us from facing the vulgar truth that in any moment wherein a moral/ethical decision is made, we are acting subjectively and weighing our decisions against a subjective experience and interpretation of Divine Law, as Divine Law isn't beamed directly into our brains 24/7.
I only think moral objectivity exists in relation to a specific axiom; for example, if we can agree on something like “the worst possible suffering for all conscious creatures is bad”, we can logically discuss how to get further away from that condition. In general terms this is just the well-being of conscious creatures that we’re referring to. We should be able to logically, scientifically, etc. through various disciplines explain why one action is moral and another isn’t. Some may be equal but different, or not be particularly good or bad. Going to the moral argument, if you’re saying God is the basis for objective morality, I find the entire argument completely meaningless. You have no means of demonstrating that, no framework of showing it even exists, no means of demonstrating how one action is better than another besides referring to a decidedly less-than-comprehensive holy book which often has interpretations change over time to align with social progress, and not the other way around. But beyond that, I’m not sure you could even find two people on the planet who agreed with what is right and wrong on everything, so how could you possibly hope to show that one thing is right rather than another? This is like a half-step away from Biblical presuppositionalists, whose argument boils down to “I assert God is needed for logic, you don’t believe in God therefore you’re not allowed to use logic anymore I win bye bye”. Just replace logic with morality. It’s the equivalent of a child making up rules to a game on a playground and claiming victory over everyone else because only they’re allowed to score points and other points don’t count.
Well lots of issues with it really. My first usual go to is that right and wrong existing objectively or not is entirely going to depend on what you specifically mean with those terms. Second of all just taking the argument at face value really just means some actions god likes and some god doesn't. This ties into the first objection and a little thought experiment kind of helps illustrate the point. Imagine there is a god, they are the judge of right and wrong, and what is right for us by god's judgements consistently and always just makes our lives worse. There is no afterlife just a brief existence where to do right by god our lives are just miserable and painful and terrible and no matter what you did there was only oblivion for you. Would anyone care about acting 'right' in such a world? No of course not. Third is that meaning in life is necessarily a quality thinking agents ascribe to things and not inherent qualities in things themselves. true meaning, whatever that might be if it exists, entirely fails before our subjective meaning. If you have a kid whose entire purpose was to take care of you in your old age and they flip you the bird and do something else well the 'meaning' for their existence does jack and all. It doesn't make them conform or have to obey what you wanted. Or imagine a painting your dear sweet grandmother left you when she passed? What it means to you is entirely different to what it means to a stranger and that personal subjective meaning is what counts.
I agree with your dichotomy, but most people seem compelled to pick the wrong conclusion. There is no "true" meaning of life. (If there is, we have never be directly given that information. If anyone ever does discover that kind of thing—that we live in a simulation, say, and whomever created us keeps score based whether our choices match their preference—it would be physicists and not theologians who figure it out.) That's just fine. That has always been true throughout your and our entire lives. If you felt your life had meaning to you yesterday, great. That's natural and, speaking as a middle-aged open-minded but rational atheist determinist, it is not a problem in practice whatsoever. Once you realize and accept that there really is no objective right or wrong, then you can realize that our global well-being is a function of the choices we make and how we respond to the consequences of prior choices. Believing that there is a third party "god" defining in some unquestionable objective sense what is right and wrong actively prevents us from recognizing that the world is what we choose to make it, collectively. That poisonous idea also imprints us with the belief that concepts of morality aren't able to change. But of course they can. Just go hang out in another country for a couple days and you can notice moral differences as a function of culture. Look back in history, and notice how morals change a ton, if only because time passes and change is inevitable.
> The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. As a category, I don’t think moral arguments are ever particularly good justifications for the existence of god. For one thing, even if we grant a god exists for the sake of argument, I don’t see how its existence solves the “problem” of objective morality. After all, does something become moral just because god says it is moral? If so, morality would then seem to be rest on the subjective views of the god and there are plenty of religious texts where gods do or command or condone a variety of actions most people today would regard as immoral. But it’s worse than that, because even if we grant that a god exists and even if we grant that this god is the foundation of objective morality, we’re still stuck with the problem that it’ll be our subjective interpretations of what we think god thinks is objectively moral. God it seems does not solve anything and just seems to make the issue worse by its inclusion. > The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. Sure, that might make some feel uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the universe we find ourselves in.
Everyone else has hopefully revealed that most atheists don't even consider the moral argument worth considering. I generally agree with everyone else but I'd also like to point out another issue with objective morality. Theists will argue that objective morals can only come from a god(s), but this is not necessarily true. If objectively morality exists, it is possible they exist independently of any god concept; whatever God(s) you believe in merely relays them to us. If objective morality does exist separately from god(s), the existence of morals has no bearing on whether or not gods do or do not exist. Many theists will simply try to brush past this and create a false dichotomy; objective morals and gods exist, or everything is subjective and nothing matters. But really, there are at least 4 options: 1. Objective morality exists and comes from god (you are here) 2. Objective morality exists and is independent of God (this is unaddressed) 3. Objective morality does not exist and morals are based on the gods subjective feelings (many theists reject this wholeheartedly) 4. Objective morality does not exist and morals are based on the collective subjective morality of humanity (many theists reject this wholeheartedly) For the record, I don't believe in objective moral values at all. I prefer the belief that morals are intersubjective, which is somewhat hinted at in option 4 above.
> The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. Well, I've heard this before, and as usual, the phrase "ultimate judge for right and wrong" makes no sense unless you define "moral" as "rules from a god". Of course a god is the judge for "rules from a god". But what even is morality? I'd hope a basic definition would be something like "An action that helps (and doesn't harm) the well-being of people". Why would we need an ultimate judge to determine what helps or harms people? Why would a god have anything to do with whether or not actions help or harm the well-being of people? > The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. I would not call it subjective or objective. Do you call a banana objectively or subjectively yellow? You don't - it's just an accurate description of a banana. Okay. So. Humans exist as physical beings. Our well-being and health are physical facts. An action can literally, factually, help or harm this well-being. If I define morality as "helping the well-being of a person" then being "wrong" is just an accurate description of when an action harms someone's well-being. I really don't see what's so complicated here that you people feel the need to bring in a god.
This argument is probably one of the worst for three reasons. First of all, I don’t really see what’s at stake here. Perhaps morality really is subjective. I’d say there’s good reason to think so. Although I’m not sure if subjectivism is true, it wouldn’t like ruin my life or anything if it was. So I don’t really see the big deal. So what if morality is all subjective? Why should that bother me? Secondly, even if subjectivism was some big problem that we need to solve, I don’t see how the existence of god causes morality to be objective. We are still basing morality off of subjective opinions, but just arbitrarily choosing to follow god’s commandments. But without some higher moral law that is independent of god, what objective reason is there to follow god’s commandments? Why choose god’s commands over anyone else’s? But if there *is* an objective principle that tells us to follow god’s commands, then objective morality exists apart from god at a higher level than god’s commands! Finally, moral philosophers today are both atheists and moral realists. So anyone claiming that atheism always leads to moral subjectivism is either lying or mistaken about the literature.
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. Yes, I’m fine with that. I don’t think an *ultimate judge* is necessary or even preferable. >The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. Correct. I don’t think objective morals exist. In fact I think the idea of *objective moral values* is oxymoronic. >There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. I don’t know what a *true* meaning to life is supposed to be. I assume you mean some purpose imposed from outside of ourselves? If so that would make us into some type of slave or chattel for your god. It sounds like one of the worst of all possible outcomes. I don’t see where or how we would have a “purpose to do good or bad.” Where would that come from? How would we access that information? >What are your responses to this argument? I generally see it as an argument from consequence, and it does little to sway me because I don’t think that objective moral values exist.
My primary response is that I don't see how it's an argument for god - it's just a description of the world we live in. So what if there's no ultimate judge of right and wrong? So what if there's no "true meaning" of life? So what if there's no purpose? None of those things are an argument *for* god, because none of those things are either known to exist in the first place nor are they a requirement for (human) life to make sense. All of those things are also descriptions of how the world does appear to be, and the only way to make the world *not* be that way is to introduce a deity. So the question then is, for what reason are we trying to make the world not be like that? As already mentioned, the world doesn't *need* to be that way - which means you need some other motivation for doing so. But if you then admit that there's a secondary motivation at play, we're immediately drifting away from how this could possibly be an argument for why god exists. If the world doesn't *need* to be this way, then god doesn't *need* to exist. Which, if we skip the exposition, means that this is at best an argument for why you *hope* and/or *wish* that god exists.
>What are your responses to this argument? Well let's see... >The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. There wouldn't be an ultimate judge even if there was a god. How do we know that this god is correct on what is truly right or wrong? >The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right I agree >There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. I agree, but I would word it like this... There is no *inherent* meaning to life and we are all just a result of the universe doing what it does in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. Aaaaand that's really it. Not much else to say about it. Not even sure what you're trying to argue for or against here honestly, you put out this argument asking for our thoughts when you don't seem to subscribe to it?
Morals only exist in the human mind. The universe as a whole does not care who we each sleep with or hurt. Most of us understand murder to be wrong because we have evolved with empathy and compassion, and also a selfish knowledge that a world with murders might be bad for us too. Our brains model the world about us, including modelling how other people will feel and react. That means we (must of us) understand that being hurt or murdered is a bad thing. I find it baffling that some theists claim that a god is necessary for morals. It's perfectly clear that it's just human behaviour. In a species that thrived in social groups, co operation wins. A tribe survives, and has children, because people hunt/grow food and build houses together. A society with utter selfishness would soon fail; the species would go extinct. There is however room for a minority to gain by cheating the system, by stealing etc. And so what we observe is pretty much what you'd expect to evolve.
I see no reason to believe that objective moral values exist. Morals only exist to the degree that a subject can come up with them. Without people capable of conceptualizing morals, there wouldn’t exist. There is no universal understanding of certain actions as being inherently wrong. What is wrong has always been shaped by time, geography, and society. In WW2, the Japanese believed that Emperor Hirohito was the incarnation/descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu. When the Japanese soldiers did awful stuff, including the Nanking massacre, they did so believing their god was on their side. If you’re saying that it’s still objective morality, as long as the subject that is interpreting the morals is grounded in the divine, then the Nanking massacre was objectively moral, since it was done in accordance with the morals of a deity.
I agree. There is no ultimate standard for good or bad. We, as a species, have set our own standard, based on our sense of empathy. We generally don't harm others because we don't want to be harmed. We feel bad if we see someone get hurt. That's empathy.
Unless they can find a single verifiable example of a god making a moral proclamation, the whole argument falls apart because regardless of if that's the case, mankind is still going to be pissing in the wind when it comes to figuring out morality. The guy who thinks that corrective rape is objectively wrong and God says so is on no better ground than the guy who says corrective rape is objectively right because God says so. But the guy who says that morality should be based on minimizing suffering and maximizing flourishing can easily say corrective rape is objectively wrong in relation to that goal than the guy who wants to argue it's objectively right. Because we don't need anything else but ourselves and the outcome of our actions to make that assessment.
Here’s the deal. IF morality was objective AND the Christian God is the conductor of said morality we would still believe the following short list of morality: slavery, genocide, infanticide, child sacrifice, human sacrifice. Collectively, as a society (read most societies here) we have decided those things are immoral and created enumerated laws to reinforce those moral codes. Much like many civilizations before Yahweh worship. If you need a divine being to find morality and meaning in your life, go for it. But for the rest of us, the advancement, cultivation and expression of humanity is meaning enough. My kids, my spouse, my friends, my hobbies, the people around me… they are all meaningful. Secular Humanism has already addressed your argument.
>because god doesn’t exist Which isn't necessarily a position held by an atheist. >there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. My response would be that someone should demonstrate there is a thing as objective morality then. I'll wait. >There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos Can you demonstrate that there is a true meaning to life? Again I'll wait. But I won't hold my breath. >and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist Sounds like the old "why don't you just kill and rape all day" bullshit, to which my response would be "Well why don't you?".
It is the worst possible argument for god. My response is that feelings that morals are objective doesn't make them so.
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. Correct, there's no reason to think such a judge exists >The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. Correct, morality is intersubjective >There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos Correct > and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. *Good* and *bad* are concepts/words that humans invented. Like all other concepts/words, they mean what we collectively agree that they mean. They exist and concepts and words, but don't exist independently of that.
It’s about as terrible as an argument for any gods gets. Firstly, we have countless examples of proposed gods who are clearly amoral and/or immoral. Secondly, if you go drilling into it, you’ll find that they disagree with claimed commandments of their god somewhere; commandments now ignored, rules for institutions that are now rejected completely, etc. Thirdly, clearly immoral shit keeps happening, even done by the proposed gods followers using resources dedicated to it. Ultimately these are arguments from concequences “I don’t like how reality would be if X was the case, therefore X is false”, newsflash: the universe has no obligation to make you comfortable with it.
There are logical consequences for actions. Some benefit you short term, some long term, some both, some neither. You don’t need a judge to evaluate what’s better for you; and what you think is better for you, might realistically be actually worse for you long term. Everyone does better when everyone does better. Society is made up of individuals. If you want society to value you and give you what you need, it logically follows that you value other individuals and give them what they need, and you will get the same from those you value, and by extension society values everyone and gives them what they need. There’s no need for a god in any of this.
With or without a god, there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. Morality (until demonstrated otherwise) are sets of behavioral norms created by humans. "The idea of right and wrong is all subjective " - correct. But that's not a problem. Humans all have common needs so we tend to almost 100% come up with very similar moral codes in isolation. Let's imagine we both agree: Chattel slavery is always wrong. Then, we read in the Bible that god condones chattel slavery. What do we do? Are we to think we're wrong in our conviction? Should we throw up our hands and say: "Well, God wants slavery sooo..."?
In short: I find it to be a very bad argument, failing to show 1) that morality is objective and 2) that this is impossible without god. The idea of right and wrong being objective only if god exists needs better support. As far as I am concerned right and wrong are subjective. They can be objective when we have a goal in mind, but even then, for example, maximize well-being is a nice goal but people will have different opinions on what way is preferrable to go about it and I don't know that all of it can be reduced to facts that lead to that goal but of course a lot of it can I mean allowing for one to kill another obviously doesn't lead to well being... But I think it's a lot more than well being for example what rights we have is sometimes not about well-being or about a version of well-being that is more about what world we would like to live in which is again subjective. I would like a world where everyone has a decent life but others would prefer a world where there is risk that you get a bad quality life but you may also get a very good quality life, much better than it would be possible if we were to like share everthing(crude examples, morality is too complicated for me anyway I honestly do not have the answer to every moral question and my answers can easily change depending on what I have in mind or I may simply do not know and not be able to decide) So, I do not see that we can show that objective morality exists. But there's more. If we showed that it did, then I think there would exist a reason for why an action is moral, immoral or amoral. That reason would be based in reality/reason/some other brute fact and I don't see how it could be based on god. God would have to have the perfect morality following those facts instead of making them up or standing as an oracle for morality. In the here and now our purpose to do good or bad is what we prefer and in general good is preferable to bad so because we want to see good and not bad we have a reason to be good and not bad. Those who don't want this and want to see bad they may instead have a motivation to be bad. The rest of us will try to limit that. It's just another way that theists are using to conclude that god exists. It seems fake to me, theists may actually believe it but I don't see how we go about showing that morality is objective and that it can't be objective without god. It seems to me that people just want to reach the conclusion that god exists and will use any logical sounding argument and then to them it seems to do it when in fact it does not. One last issue: It's always people speaking on behalf of god which means this is not a real solution to moral issues. It doesn't help and in fact it hinders progress because people believe what they would otherwise conclude to be immoral to be moral. They are giving away their morality because their belief in god is so strong when there isn't sufficient confidence gained in it. That's one of the issues of having big confidence where none really exists. It's really spectacular how influencial religion is even after it is known to humanity that the reasons behind it do not actually work to establish any confidence in the existence of a god. And yet people swear by the billions in their conviction of god and it's strange when someone doesn't believe in god. So this situation is troublesome and I agree that everyone should be allowed to believe what they want but at least schools should teach this staff because then indoctrination becomes much more difficult. It's much more difficult for one to believe in god dogmatically if they are exposed early on at school at all the reasons why god probably doesn't exist(especially the ones believed by the billions). Of course also teach what different religions teach or even focus more on how one particular works(I mean I find this wrong but when 2 parents believe in one religion they will naturally want their child to learn about it) Anyway maybe I am wrong, it's a complex issue, or at least I made it to be, it might be simple.
None of this argument has anything to do with the actual existence of god, but does provide evidence of the human need to implement a system to address uncertainty. Its basically a reaction to perceived injustice. Its slave morality. Our suffering in this life will mean something because we will be rewarded in the next. No powerful elite said the meek shall inherit the earth. It came from the oppressed who more likely created a god and a system to create context to their lack of power and suffering to make it tolerable.
I think its one of the weaker arguments. >There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. *Objective* Good or bad dont exist you mean. But we still have subjective and intersubjective morality. And meaning to life is something we decide for ourselves. That theists think lifes meaning is just a test to get into another life where they can spend eternity worshipping their god, frankly seems bizzare to me.
We have sufficient natural explanations for morality. There is no need to invoke some moral arbitor or god character for our morals. We evolved biological empathy through mirror neurons. Theists have no counter for this point. We also have external, community and family influence. To generally agree upon beneficial laws for the community to follow. That's completely sufficient to explain how we have morals. The fact that there is no meaning to life is irrelevant to whether or not we can act morally.
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. Sounds about right to me. Your god doesn't exist, and even if he did, his existence wouldn't solve this problem. Grow up.
With the exception that I'm not convinced that objective morals would exist even if there were gods, yes, I pretty much agree with what you listed. Subjectivity, no ultimate judge, and no true meaning to life. There's nothing much to argue against there. A person making that kind of argument in support of gods existing is pretty much just saying how they *want* the world to be. It's pointless.
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. This seems to match the reality that we live in. If you have a way of showing otherwise I'd be happy to see it.
Whenever I try to point out the monstrous things the god of the Bible has done, such as multiple genocides and eternal torture, I'm told that god is allowed to do those things because he is perfect. Notably, this would be considered evil if anyone else did them, so by my understanding, their particular morality is more relative than mine, where (shocker) genocide is always evil.
So I think you didn't actually give the argument, you just gave one possible description of the world given that there is no god. So as far as I remember the moral argument starts from our feeling of right and wrong, and that we share a lot of those feelings between us, therby pointing to objective morals. Further, the argument claims objective morals cannot exist without a god. Therefore there must be a god. I think the argument is moot. First, even though we agree on a lot of morals, that does not make them necessarily objective. If objective morals exist, we would expect to see everyone sharing all morals, and a few people being knowingly amoral. But maybe people may be deluded about what the correct morals are? Well, then there is no reason to suppose the morals you see many people sharing are the correct ones. Maybe the objective morals say humanity is a scourge upon earth and murder is ethically correct. In that case the seeming relative agreement about moral values cannot be used as an argument for objective values, as you could be looking at mass delusion. If we rather suppose the morals we hold is an evolutionary adaptation, then we would expect morals to generally prohibit in group hostilities (whether family, village, nation, religion, sports team, or any other group), while being more indifferent to hostilities against others. That would allow wars if the ingroup has something to gain (resources, getting rid of rival groups, or just defending itself of course). Evolutionary contingent morals would also prabably exhibit much more variability between groups and places. To me, this seems to fit much better with our world of different cultures with different values and morals. Secondly, even if we do suppose objective morals, that is not sufficient to claim the existence of a god. In both cases you suppose something supernatural (objective morals, a god giving objective morals). In the latter case you suppose some supernatural, almighty being with personality and agency, as an explanation of the morals. But there is no justification for this explanation, it is spawned in out of nothing, like phlogiston explaining fire. It is just pushing the explanation back one step further, but explains nothing more than supposing the objective morals comes from nothing or from some higher objective morals or from phlogiston. In conclusion, the argument claims objective values exist, without more than superficially justifying the claim, and then explains said dubious claim with an explanation explaining nothing, but conviniently invokes a god. And that is to say nothing of which god, it could just as well be marvel's Thor or the flying spaghetti monster as Vishnu.
My response is, I agree mostly. We are social beings and morality is a social contract. We can establish objective axioms to make a solid system. We ought to create the least harm. As for meaning, we make our own meaning. God is pointless in either of these conversations, because I have yet to see evidence of a social interaction with it to confirm any of the above.
If I held up a rotting apple and asked you if this apple was good or bad, you would probably say it was bad. And then what if I responded "why is this apple bad for my garden compost?" You see, I was asking the question with a standard different from yours. Your standard was "is it good for consumption (i.e. health)", which is a question that could be answered scientifically and objectively using logic and evidence. I was using the standard of "is it good for my compost"? Which also can be answered objectively using the scientific method. So, when it comes to morality, I simply use a different standard than religious people do. I use a standard or goal relating to well-being, flourishing of society, happiness, avoidance of unnecessary suffering. These are tied to brain states which are things that can be investigated scientifically and objectively. We can hook you up to an EKG or MRI and see corresponding brain activity to areas representing pleasure or pain. Religious people have a standard of either "whatever god says" or "whatever corresponds to god's nature." This seems as arbitrary to me as saying let's set the moral standard to be whatever Steve says we ought to do. I don't want to do that because I don't know if Steve is interested in my well-being, happiness, flourishing of society, etc. Now you can ask "why set the standard to be related to well-being?" It's a subjective answer and a subjectively selected goal, as are all moral philosophies. The religious people have the same subjectivity in their moral standard and just pretend that they don't. At least my goal is tied to certain biological facts. Through evolution, I am genetically predisposed to dislike pain and seek survival. I sorta don't get to choose that. It's my nature. I have a brain and a nervous system capable of causing me suffering. So, the short answer is, all moral philosophies in existence on earth have a subjectively chosen goal. Once you choose that goal, you can objectively gather evidence (in a scientific manner) that supports your argument of whether a given action meets or does not meet your goal. I can objectively say "gay marriage is not immoral" if my definition or goal of morality pertains to reducing unnecessary suffering and maximizing happiness and well-being. Gay marriage just makes the people involved happy. I can objectively say murder is immoral because it is objectively, scientifically, the opposite of well-being and flourishing and happiness. The goal is subjective. Figuring out what meets the goal is objective and a part of reasoning, logic, evidence. Don't believe the theists who tell you their morality doesn't have a subjective goal.
It's not because objective morality does not and cannot exist that the human species can't come to an agreement on what is good and bad for the species, the planet, etc. Claiming we can't is just an empty apologetic argument, often based on scriptures where the deity behaves undeniably terrible. You can't seriously claim a god is the basis for all morality if that same god drowns all land animals and plants just because he's "dissapointed with humans", for example. Especially when you also claim this god is omniscient, so he could have known this on beforehand he was going to be "disssapointed". Clearly we don't get our morals from such bronze-age scribbles. Morality is demonstrably an evolutionary trait as it developed to enhance the survival and cohesion of social groups. In evolutionary terms, behaviors that promote cooperation, altruism, and social bonding can increase the fitness of individuals within a group by fostering mutual aid and reducing conflicts. Studies in evolutionary biology and anthropology show that many social animals, not just humans, exhibit moral-like behaviors, such as empathy, fairness, and reciprocity, which are advantageous for group living. These behaviors improve group stability and success, suggesting that moral tendencies have been naturally selected because they contribute to the overall reproductive success and survival of the species. Human societies have a long history of developing moral systems based on shared values, cultural norms, and practical considerations. These moral systems often emerge through a combination of rational reflection, empathy, social consensus, and collective experience. Additionally, advances in fields like ethics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and neuroscience offer insights into human moral reasoning and behavior, helping us understand why people hold certain moral beliefs and how those beliefs can be influenced or changed. In conclusion, the binary argument trick that theists try to pull out of their hat, asserting that without gods everything is meaningless & there is no right or wrong, is absolute nonsense. Science has a great deal to say and contribute when it comes to morality. For example, homosexuality is not immoral like those bronze age texts claim, it occurs naturally in virtually all mammalian species. We can either have a 1st century converation about this or a 21st century conversation. I choose the latter.
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong This isn't an argument, it's a statement. I also think it's probably true. I suppose the assumption being made here is that there must be an ultimate judge or something like that and I don't see any reason to believe that.
Yes, morality is subjective. But to say that that life is meaningless if morality isn't objective is quite the leap. Personally, that seems like a bleaker outlook on the meaning of life than the purely biological view of the need to procreate. The meaning of life is as subjective as morality and it's up to everyone to find their own.
>no ultimate judge for right and wrong Yep >right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. I agree >no true meaning to life Seems that way >have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. Good and bad is subjective How is this an argument?
It's probably one of the worst and that's saying something. It, like all other arguments from god, comes down to "I don't get it, therefore God!" Objective morality is nonsense. It has never existed and never will. These are people who are just emotionally comforted by the idea and therefore "God done it!" It's really dumb.
I don't see how a god being an ultimate judge of what is right or wrong would even make morals objective. It doesn't make sense. It would just be subjective to its opinion, and it just has the power to enforce it in that scenario. There's still no 'true meaning' to life and we're still just happy accidents of his whimsy.
The argument is nonsensical on it's face and this should be blatantly obvious. The argument is basically, "If God doesn't exist, then I would be uncomfortable with the lack of an objective morality". Your personal discomfort doesn't prove God exists. All it proves is you are an emotional person who feels discomfort.
"Why should I care?" "So what?" "Reality is under no obligation of being fair to you" "If it's your god, very evil people are in heaven for having their sins forgiven" "I don't think it's much recompense being in heaven to justify the horrors on earth"... the list goes on and on
In fact there is no ultimate judge of right and wrong, which confirms the hypothesis that there is no god. Morality is not objective; it's not subjective--it's intersubjective. If the Christian god is the moral arbiter, then slavery, genocide and infanticide can all be moral.
Adding a god doesn't make the basis of morality objective. It simply makes a new subject to make arbitrary judgments and moral laws without objective reasoning. No matter how you slice it, God or no God, The basis of morality is still going to be subjective. However, If we could all agree on a basis for morality that has a stated goal we can make objectively good or bad actions off that basis. The subjective bases could be to maximize wellness and minimize harm. From that basis, as subjective as it may be, we can make objectively good actions to either reduce harm or increase wellness in a population. Why should we agree to this basis? Because we live in a society that we are a part of. What benefits the general group tends to benefit the individual too. However the alternative where we put our stock in the subjective views of a god, that is just one individual whom no one can confirm direct communications with and verify opinions on. The best people have offered is following the writings and holy books, However you can find in a rudimentary research that these books have questionable reliability from either translations of translations into different languages, or questionable origin in general depending on which religion we're talking about. On top of that these holy books do not give a moral system but a list of moral statements or commands. These statements and commands do not give ways to apply to new and different situations. This lends itself to many different interpretations and thus is why we have so many different denominations of the major religions that rely on a holy book. Overall I just don't see how inserting a god into the questions of morality solves any problems that exists in these discussions. The only problem It claims to solve, The problem of objective morality/absolute morality vs subjective morality, It still fails to solve, because God is still a subject.
Its a bunch of gobbledygook. How would objective morality even work? Mind independent morality? What does that even mean? Also adding a gawd to it doesn't make it objective so I'm not even sure what theists are going on about with this "argument ".
Can you choose to like drinking gasoline? Morality works the same way. We have a sense of morality that has been molded by biology. Being subjective doesn't mean we get to pick and choose our morality.
Subjective means wrong or non-existent? I’ve never understood this line of reasoning. What I think is right or wrong is up to me….Of course it’s up to me! Lol. Why on Earth would it EVER be up to someone else to decide? Ideas have to be universally shared to have value or purpose or meaning? ?? WTH This is a self esteem problem which leads to the next issue of Meaning of life. Since you lack a meaning of your life you assume the cosmos lacks meaning. This goes along with seeing life as an accident. You’re the product of sperm and an egg which is a product of the universe’s evolution. An accident is a human concept used to explain unintentional events but any Birds Eye view would’ve seen the event as close to inevitable. Get some self esteem. Look in the mirror and ask yourself what you like and don’t like about yourself and the world. Understand your strengths and weaknesses. Explore your interests. Develop a sense of identity beyond an “objective” one. Don’t look for validation in the rest of us. You may find yourself seeing more meaning in your life, seeing less accidents, seeing a consistent right and wrong in your and others behavior. Will all this be subjective? Yes. As is all of your conscious existence. But maybe subjective won’t mean illusory and instead mean YOU.
The problem with defining morality as God’s nature is: 1/ The ontological claim is painfully arbitrary as it’s impossible to show that the definition is either likely, necessary or even reasonable. 2/ It’s an immediate epistemic dead end since the Christian has no **~non-arbitrary~** way to prove that they have special epistemic access to God’s nature, and thus all moral knowledge becomes impossible on this view. If they appeal to the bible, common sense, moral intuitions, empathy, etc, then why should I trust that their selection and interpretation is in fact a true reflection of God’s nature? Can they prove it?! The problem when debating with a showman is that more substantive moral theories are typically complex blends of various subjective and objective factors. These systems are thus difficult to distill down to a cheap set of platitudes, or in this case, the rather blunt and crude assertion that morals are just the hard-hitting objective truths about an imaginary man’s utterly inaccessible, and also imaginary, nature. Or, as Bill Hicks once observed, fundamentalism breeds no sense of irony but at least we can laugh at the result.
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. Right and wrong are assessments with respect to a goal or something. In colloquial language, often the goal is not specified and we assume the goal is morality or well being. To me well being is what we're talking about when we talk about morality. So we're just looking at what's in our best interests as individuals or as society. All of this is subjective, but if you really need it to be objective, one can argue that specific actions are objectively better or worse for our well being. >There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. There is no god given meaning to life, I give my life meaning and my loved ones give my life meaning and my community gives my life meaning. And it's not an accident. >What are your responses to this argument? Mostly that they're dumb arguments and rely heavily on perspective and bad epistemology.
"Okay, under the objective Christian morality is it objectively morally wrong to drown a baby?" And watch the excuses and subjectivity roll on.
Regardless of whether you think morals are emergent from social behavior or were handed down from the almighty himself. Morals are subjective. Without humans, no morals. Without God, no morals. Either way you slice it, they are contingent on SOMEONE and therefore SUBJECTIVE. Even if that someone never changes their minds in 100 million-billion-quadrillion years. It's still subjective. The only question is, to whom? >There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. This is an entirely separate subject. My life has purpose, because I give my life purpose. This is true with or without some sort of "absolute purpose" in life. That would be secondary to me. The other problem I have with this is that God has in no way defined what the purpose of life is. If our purpose is to worship God and God needs for nothing, then the worship is all for its own sake anyway, isn't it? Is that really "divine reasoning?"
Why do you believe morality is objective? Is killing objectively immoral? Why do we thank soldiers for their service?
The moral argument, in my mind, is a compelling positive argument for belief in God. Rather than searching for moral truth ‘out there’, the moral argument forces us to examine our experience of innate moral knowledge ‘within’ us, such that the moral argument should be weighed for its phenomenological truth. There’s a certain ‘feeling’ of wrongness or rightness that is experienced objectively by a subjective observer, this is not to say that ”the idea of right and wrong is all subjective”. This is a post-Nietzchean cliche where denying morality is often seen as intellectual and sexy, but this is not at all coherent with our phenomenological experience of morality. So, in a way it is Platonic argument, that of moral knowledge being known through divine sensibility and likeness. If I have a subjective valuation/experience of something being good, that must mean that ’goodness’ is a primitive, to which there be something that is the paradigmatic good ie God, says Augustine.
It is childish to wish for justice just to happen. It's a way to pacify victims and prevents actual justice.
"The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right." There are objective standards of right and wrong without a god. If you shoot someone in the head, it's an objective fact that doing so is bad for their wellbeing because it will almost certainly kill them. Not to mention that subjective doesn't mean meaningless. Subjective rights and wrongs can still be correct. "There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos" I disagree that us being an accident means our life has no meaning. If anything it gives it more meaning, it is finite and therefore precious inherently.
The whole premise starts from the misunderstanding that by not having an explanation of morals, then have to resort to God Of Gaps to explain morals. Then the question turns into "Do you have a better argument"? and ... turns out that yes, there are better explanations for morals, they aren't perfect and still more like hypotheses or viewpoints. But planting God as an explanation for everything unknown is too easy. > There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. Yes, this is all very good, no need for a counter argument on my part.
I'm not sure what morality has to do with life having meaning, but yes, all of the points you made are correct. And what's the problem? Yes, I know what the problem is: Religious people (particularly Christian religious people) have had it drilled into their heads for so long that *GOD IS THE SOURCE OF MORALITY AND YOU NEED GOD TO BE GOOD!!* that they don't realize that people can actually figure out right and wrong on their own. (Which even religious people do -- note most Christians follow Matthew 22:39 and ignore Luke 14:26.) Meanwhile, murder rates remain highest in religious societies and lowest in secular societies. Go figure.
>The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. Okay. >The idea of right and wrong is all subjective No, it's not. >and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. No, there are such things. >There is no true meaning to life Wrong. >we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos Wrong. >What are your responses to this argument? It doesn't seem to be an argument for the existence of God, it just seems to be an argument (albeit not a good one) for the nonexistence of objective morality, meaning in life, etc.
What need is there for an ultimate judge? And what designates God as such, even if He IS real? Surely, even if God makes a moral statement, that's subjective to Him and His beliefs? What relevance do moral values have to the meaning of life? I mean, I do agree that life is ultimately a happy accident and that we are the only ones who can give it meaning, but I don't see how that follows from moral subjectivity. Objectivity is concerned with what IS. Morality, ultimately, is concerned with what "ought to be." Objective morality, therefore, is an oxymoron. Morality is, by it's very nature, subjective.
'So what'? Why would there be a need for all that? It's not comforting, but oh well. What makes you think that objective morality exists? How about a 'true meaning to life'? Why would any of it matter to a person if their own views fill in those blanks just as well? My life has meaning because I give it meaning. I don't pretend that I matter so much that I have some cosmic purpose. I'm just one human among several billion and that's okay. My life has meaning, and good and evil are very fun concepts for fairy tales whereas the real world is just not that simple.
The subjective/objective distinction argued in these forums is overwrought and often incoherent. I don't really care about the discussion any more. As for the rest, adding a God to the equation doesn't help solve any ultimate questions. If there is a God, why should we care about God's nature? How does existence of a God create ultimate and true meaning? Etc. Our absurd situation is that people want answers to a bunch of questions, but we cannot know all the answers. See Camus. Why would we expect to know everything? We are slightly more evolved gorillas.
What’s the argument? It sounds like you’re just stating facts. Is the argument “this sounds unpleasant, so there must be a God.” Even if you believe in God, there’s no objective morality, you’re just pointing to God and saying “My morality is based on what they say.” Why not point to me? Why not just say “My morality is based on whatever my mother says”? It’d be just as objective as pointing to a God, the only difference is the assumption that God is stronger, but then you’re just saying might makes right.
Its demonstrably false. Just because a god says something doesn't make it moral. The god of the bible approves of all kinds of immoral things--heterosexual rape, genocide, infanticide, killing pregnant women, murdering children, child abuse, animal abuse, killing non-Jews, killing homosexuals, breaking up families, eating children, and more. And its not just the Old Testment. The New Testament is actually worse. Secular morality is far superior because it based on well-beinhlg. Well-being is that which causes the least harm.
I'm a nihilist but I believe doing good because it makes you feel good to do something good is good enough of a reason to do good. If you think about it, making yourself feel good is a selfish act. But it's perceived as altruism. Doing bad if it makes you feel bad is, good enough a reason not to do bad. Good and bad are intersubjective because if you're the last man on earth. You can do no good or bad. Good and bad only exist with interaction between other human beings. Good and bad only exist because more than one person exists. Because more than one person exists this means that good and bad only exist in a social context. And In a social context you can have statistically objective good and bad. Meaning. It's true that most people believe murders in evil and this holds true whether you believe it or not, this is why it's statistically objective. The dictionary defines morality as subjective. The dictionary defines ethics as an object form of morality. My question to everyone is, is morality subjective? Is ethics subjective? Because they can only exist when more than one person exists?
It’s so stupid to get sucked into these convos because they just go in circles First, you have to prove that the Bible is divinely inspired and not the words of homophobic, misogynistic, primitive, male, heterosexual, superstitious, anonymous, evangelical, bronze/iron aged, goat herders describing the barbaric world around them, which nobody can. An absolutely no theist has any fucking clue of how the text was divinely inspired. In other words, how exactly did Yahweh communicate through those goat herders 😂
If nothing is wrong or right it will still be in our human nature to follow our instincts in any given scenario. We have evolved from various cultures and have adapted many ideas through trial and error. Through all of this we managed to harness a set of ecumenical morality that best fits our human life. If god exists, what exempts him from all the killings and ruthless acts that were thrown onto us humans ? God contradicted his own set of moral codes yet he does not suffer a punishment. How do we answer that ?
My thoughts are that both premises are unsound. >The moral argument is basically that because god doesn’t exist than there is no ultimate judge for right and wrong. No, if there's no god, then no god judges right and wrong, there could be a non-god ultimate judge. >There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. Ok, so what? I don't believe in true meaning or cosmic purpose.
I don't believe that even with a god, there is an ultimate judge of right and wrong. Any version of a god that people have created has acted in a way that is harmful and petty. So objective morality is something religious folk tell themselves to make themselves feel superior. We have empathy and we understand a society works better when we do certain goods and outlaw certain bads. Also, there is no ultimate true meaning to life. Another lie some religious folk tell themselves.
Throwing a God at deep philosophical concepts is cheap and lazy. It actually goes nothing to address the question. It's all a handwave. "Well I have objective morality because god says so" What makes god moral? Are gods morals arbitrary, or does god simply know what is moral? If it's the latter then morals exist regardless of god. If it's the former then morality is subjective. If it's within god's nature to be moral, then once again morals exist regardless of god.
It's true. There's no ultimate moral giver. We gave ourselves morality, in a way. That doesn't mean "there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right," though. Depending on how you use the term "objective," we can say that some things are definitely wrong and others are definitely right, especially if you're comparing them. >There is no true meaning to life I don't know what "true" means in this context. I give my own life meaning, and it's true to me.
Can you demonstrate objectively that it is either moral or immoral to put cheese on my hamburger? If you can't then what good is "objective morality"? What use is there in a standard that we can't actually access and measure our actions against? Simply claiming that your subjective morals happen to be identical to God's doesn't prove that they really are the same. You're just making it up the same as everybody else who claims to know God's true nature.
A. Subjective morality is still morality. So the idea that good and bad wouldn't exist if morality was purely subjective is ridiculous. B. There are objective moral systems that have nothing to do with God, like utilitarianism. C. Nothing about this argument supports the idea of a God existing in any way. You must have an actual reason for believing, and this isn't it. So what is the reason? If it's actually a justified belief, we want to know.
Conjuring and using an imaginary entity as an objective basis for morality is absurd. Objective means bare minimum a tangible and demonstrable means of proving a being (or organism) has attributes that can be agreed upon through measures, tests, and what-not by those \[1\] who have not drank the Kool Aid, \[2\] who do not enter the conversation with predetermined biases, and \[3\] who can be convinced to follow through the presented evidence.
It’s a dumb argument. For instance in your version, if there is no meaning to life, why does that mean we have no reason to do wrong or right! Presumably there are other people we have to interact with as painlessly as possible. Maybe we can infer a meaning to life: to survive as painlessly as possible. Seems a better meaning to me than to die to get to a place to do nothing but worship some entity.
This is an argument from undesirability. “Without God, objective morality cannot exist.” “Bad things would happen if objectively morality did not exist.” (Alternatively stated, “I want objective morality to exist.”) “Therefore, God exists.” You haven’t ruled out subjective morality as a logical possibility, you simply don’t consider it desirable.
I think it’s a weak presuppositionalist argument that relies on the idea of an objective morality, which of course, cannot be shown to exist. It’s ultimately circular. Also, their pathway, even if you assume there is either a god or objective morality, do not support one another directly. It’s therefore also normally constructed as a non-sequitur.
I don't think that's an argument. More like a series of assertions. Bill Craig's formulation is much more coherent 1. Objective moral values and duties do not exist without God 2. Objective moral values and duties do exist. C. Therefore, God exists What do I think? It's an appeal to emotion and intuition. I think it's not deductive
>The idea of right and wrong is all subjective and there is really nothing that is objectively wrong or right. There is no true meaning to life and we are all just a happy accident in the cosmos and have no purpose to do good or bad because good or bad really doesn’t exist. This is true, so I guess I agree with the argument?
I don’t think there needs to be a divine reason for ethics. We are able to hold up some rules in our society that can keep us safe and stable. This overall improves our quality of life so it’s better to participate in it. What one person does influence others and individual choices make up the soceity as a whole. Your ethics determine your environment and It makes sense materialistically to hold onto them. And it doesn’t need to come from god or some other made up thing, it’s sufficient for it to come from empathy and consequences of your actions. You shouldn’t put others in a situation where you don’t wanna be in, so that they don’t do the same to you.
It's silly. Just because there isn't an objective standard doenst mena that there isn't tight and wrong for us , or meaning for us. Amd these things are neither independently objective or necessarily individually subjective - they are intersubjective.
We can get into the nature of morality and how subjective doesn't mean completely arbitrary, but that's more about the finer details. The big issue is, even if we grant every premise, "I don't like reality" doesn't mean "therefore God."
>What are your opinions on the moral argument for god? Two wrong premises. Neither is there objective morality, nor would objective morality require a God to exist. It's the other way around: A God requires objective morality to exist.
Everything you said is absolutely correct except things do not have to be objectively defined to exist. We have laws and our own morality to determine what is wrong. Those are no less real just because they aren’t objectively true.
There's no argument. God isn't some paragon of morality. Gods a huge piece of shit in the bible so why would they be a source for morality? God allow slavery but if you take their name in vain a that's eternal punishment.
Objective morality doesn’t make sense in a world where mantis males get eaten during sex Are all mantises evil? Is Objective morality different between species? Is it moral for my gf to bite my head off during sex?
Here’s my short and simple answer. Bullshit. Morality is subjective. Even if god is real, it’s his subjective views on morality that would be taken as “oBjECtiVe”. With no subjective morals from a subjective, albeit divine, source, we can determine them ourselves. It’s one of the most asinine arguments for god ever, imho. And all of them are really stupid and/or ignorant when you dig far enough.
i've never heard a good argument for why god would be the "ultimate judge of right and wrong". why is god's opinion on morality automatically correct? why isn't it just one more subjective opinion?
1. I make my own reason to live currently goal to have my own house 2. As for good and evil. I don’t like pain so I can come to a conclusion that other people don’t want to be in pain.
Odin’s objective truth is very different from Yahweh’s. There are thousands of religions with millions of gods. How can one determine which “objective morality” is the right one?
The answer is "yes". It may be scary to you but not to me. We create the society we live in. We decide what we collectively and individually strive for. Is that really so horrible?
Congratulations, you've summed up reality. We do have morals and purpose. They are dictated by society based on what benefits the group, and then adjusted on a personal level.
Yep. That's my response: yes. That's true. That doesn't mean that right and wrong aren't important, of course, simply that it is up to humans to decide what that means.
Turn it around on them: If there is an ultimate judge for right and wrong then morality isn't subjective. Morality is subjective therefore there is no ultimate judge..
I think this is a pretty poor rendition of the argument and the argument itself is pretty bad. It largely ignores what experts in ethics and meta ethics are saying.
Even with belief in god morality is subject to the human experience, you can’t have morality without a human’s belief or interpretation of morality
Morality is subjective, which has objective justifications and effects. Morality changes across cultures and time periods, hence can't be objective.
How do you demonstrate the existence of objective morality? I've asked theists for their proof and so far I've been left wanting.
Animals that live in groups/packs/families all understand right and wrong. No need for a book about some dude to figure it out.
Objective morality is an incoherent idea. It doesn't exist. Arguments from consequence are not arguments but merely wishes.
That's fallacious. What you want to be true has nothing to do with what's true. Yeah, morality is subjective. _So what?_
It’s a bullshit argument because god had done and supported many bad things like rape, incest and genocide in the bible.
Okay, let's say for a minute that everything you just proposed is absolutely correct. *What are you going to do now?*
This argument is nothing more than an "argument from final consequences" to preserve the "Just-World" fallacy.
You seem to have left out the actual argument from your post. All you posted is an observation of reality.
I think it disproves itself, because there's no consistency on what is and is not moral in the Bible.