absolute vs. subjective morality

[Altec55]

sorry, didn't mean for it to sound contradictory. i didn't mean that "Will I find out one day if I am right? Yes. Same with everyone." applied to my belief. i used it to help you understand where i'm coming from with the "my faith" answer.

to you I stand the possibility of being wrong. to me, i don't stand the possibility of being wrong.

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

sorry, didn't mean for it to sound contradictory. i didn't mean that "Will I find out one day if I am right? Yes. Same with everyone." applied to my belief. i used it to help you understand where i'm coming from with the "my faith" answer.

to you I stand the possibility of being wrong. to me, i don't stand the possibility of being wrong.

therefore to you everyone else is wrong (those with different beliefs to yours).

belief in something does not make it true, so what makes yours more right than someone else's?

Their faith may lead to a different set of moral values, a different belief in judgement, a different belief in what is sinful. What makes yours more right than theirs? Faith cannot be answer here because they could have more faith than you.

I am not trying to prove you wrong, I am only trying to understand your rationalization from a logical standpoint, so please help me here.

[Slartibartfast]

What is good and bad though? What defines it?

Societal consensus. We say murder is wrong because the many agree it is.

I disagree. I've asked the same question about why is murder wrong. But i don't think it's societal consensus, sometimes you will have situations where societal consensus affects laws. i.e. gay marriage being allowed. However, it appears as though the basis for laws regarding right/wrong goes back to religious standpoints. For the USA, the founders were predominantly Christian and therefore laws formed based on their religious beliefs, hence making murder wrong in the states.

laws are always made on societal grounds. what other basis is there? The USA is and never was meant to be a theocracy, so this gay marriage is against God argument is moot. Many of the Founding Fathers were Deist, or not staunch Christians and often said religion and state shouldn't mix.

Societal consensus made/makes slavery illegal in the US, as well as owning guns, and not burning the flag in public. Nuttn in de Bible saying owning guns is good, or burning flags is bad.

Murder is not objectively wrong. Mercy killing, abortion, self defense.
Societal consensus is not always the reason why we consider things subjectively wrong. Voting ILP
Societal consensus is not always the reason for laws. Communism.

it's social consensus that makes exceptions for euthanasia or self-defence. and in communism, in its pure sense, people make the laws....

So when do you consider it was no longer being morally wrong to be gay and engage in gay acts? Also, are you saying that it is wrong to be gay in some societies? Even for someone who is completely straight on the surface and only engages in those activities behind closed doors with no other witnesses?

[Slartibartfast]

Maybe "aim" is a better word to use than "principle" in my argument.

i.e. "Do no harm" is the objective aim of morality as opposed to "Do no harm" is the objective underlying principle"

I believe if your aim is to do no harm in a situation you should end up making the right moral decision in that situation. Sometimes it is not possible to do no harm, however, as long as you aim to do no harm you do the least overall harm that you can possibly do within the given situation and end up making the morally right decision.

This argument still seems shaky at best but I am unable to disprove it. Maybe one of your guys can.

[Slartibartfast]

Just realised "objective aim" is redundant. Maybe "Do no harm" is just the objective of morality.

[desifemlove]

What is good and bad though? What defines it?

Societal consensus. We say murder is wrong because the many agree it is.

I disagree. I've asked the same question about why is murder wrong. But i don't think it's societal consensus, sometimes you will have situations where societal consensus affects laws. i.e. gay marriage being allowed. However, it appears as though the basis for laws regarding right/wrong goes back to religious standpoints. For the USA, the founders were predominantly Christian and therefore laws formed based on their religious beliefs, hence making murder wrong in the states.

laws are always made on societal grounds. what other basis is there? The USA is and never was meant to be a theocracy, so this gay marriage is against God argument is moot. Many of the Founding Fathers were Deist, or not staunch Christians and often said religion and state shouldn't mix.

Societal consensus made/makes slavery illegal in the US, as well as owning guns, and not burning the flag in public. Nuttn in de Bible saying owning guns is good, or burning flags is bad.

Murder is not objectively wrong. Mercy killing, abortion, self defense.
Societal consensus is not always the reason why we consider things subjectively wrong. Voting ILP
Societal consensus is not always the reason for laws. Communism.

it's social consensus that makes exceptions for euthanasia or self-defence. and in communism, in its pure sense, people make the laws....

So when do you consider it was no longer being morally wrong to be gay and engage in gay acts? Also, are you saying that it is wrong to be gay in some societies? Even for someone who is completely straight on the surface and only engages in those activities behind closed doors with no other witnesses?

Different groups have different norms. Families, regions, friends, etc. all do. ah group ah Hindus may think it wrong to eat beef, another group may lime in BK or Wendys every Friday. Some Catholics may not eat meat on Good Friday, others cookin barbecue... Whichever consensus emerges is the moral norm. To me, though others may disagree, morality is a consensus amongst groups, and there are no physical moral facts. If a straight person is secretly gay or does gay acts in private, well s/hes being dishonest.

As for when, well when homophobia became less acceptable. There is no cut off, it emerged over decades.

[Slartibartfast]

So you are saying that it is wrong for a couple to get married in the states and move back to Trinidad? Most people in Trinidad think being gay "jus wrong"

[desifemlove]

yes, I am.

[MD Marketers]

Just realised "objective aim" is redundant. Maybe "Do no harm" is just the objective of morality.

Morality:
Principles concerning the distinction between right & wrong or good & bad behaviour.
"do no harm" is the objective of right & wrong?
Do you know what distinction means?
I think you meant to say "Harm" is what we use to differentiate between right & wrong.
"do no harm" is the objective of good behaviour?
"do harm" is the objective of bad behaviour?

"Good" and "bad" are inherently normative terms, so these terms can never ever be used in an objective manner.

No matter how you look at an act to determine if it's good or bad it will always be subjective.

Eg:
Objective statement:
He threw me down.
It can be proven that the act of throwing was done, despite the perspective.

Subjective statement:
He threw me down too hard.
Although we know the throw was objectively true, we don't know if "too hard" was objectively true.

[Altec55]

sorry, didn't mean for it to sound contradictory. i didn't mean that "Will I find out one day if I am right? Yes. Same with everyone." applied to my belief. i used it to help you understand where i'm coming from with the "my faith" answer.

to you I stand the possibility of being wrong. to me, i don't stand the possibility of being wrong.

therefore to you everyone else is wrong (those with different beliefs to yours).

belief in something does not make it true, so what makes yours more right than someone else's?

Their faith may lead to a different set of moral values, a different belief in judgement, a different belief in what is sinful. What makes yours more right than theirs? Faith cannot be answer here because they could have more faith than you.

I am not trying to prove you wrong, I am only trying to understand your rationalization from a logical standpoint, so please help me here.

i know you're not trying to prove me wrong. i'm not trying to prove i'm right as well. i understand where you are coming from as i also had the question at one point in my life.
but my faith is the answer to why i believe that God is who He says He is in His Word (the Bible). This would seem illogical to someone who doesn't believe that. However faith is something that can/cannot be proven. It has to be experienced. That's also why you cannot convince someone that God is real or that He says who He is. They must experience it for themselves and choose to believe for themselves.

[MD Marketers]

sorry, didn't mean for it to sound contradictory. i didn't mean that "Will I find out one day if I am right? Yes. Same with everyone." applied to my belief. i used it to help you understand where i'm coming from with the "my faith" answer.

to you I stand the possibility of being wrong. to me, i don't stand the possibility of being wrong.

therefore to you everyone else is wrong (those with different beliefs to yours).

belief in something does not make it true, so what makes yours more right than someone else's?

Their faith may lead to a different set of moral values, a different belief in judgement, a different belief in what is sinful. What makes yours more right than theirs? Faith cannot be answer here because they could have more faith than you.

I am not trying to prove you wrong, I am only trying to understand your rationalization from a logical standpoint, so please help me here.

i know you're not trying to prove me wrong. i'm not trying to prove i'm right as well. i understand where you are coming from as i also had the question at one point in my life.
but my faith is the answer to why i believe that God is who He says He is in His Word (the Bible). This would seem illogical to someone who doesn't believe that. However faith is something that can/cannot be proven. It has to be experienced. That's also why you cannot convince someone that God is real or that He says who He is. They must experience it for themselves and choose to believe for themselves.

It goes deeper than that Altec.
One of the claims you made is definitely logical and true.
Faith has to be experienced, but there is one fundamental flaw in your logic.
You think faith is one of the few things that needs to be experienced & cannot be proven
Fact is everything in life needs to be experienced & cannot be proven except one.
"Your thoughts". Things are either theoretically possible or theoretically impossible.
The very statement "it has to be proven" is a paradox unless you are speaking about thought.
Therefore the reason why we cannot convince someone that god is theoretically real isn't because we cannot prove it. It's because the explanation we gave of God does not make logical sense.
If you could describe God in a manner that makes theoretical sense then you will have no opposition in convincing people that this God exists.
It has nothing to do with belief.

Name me anything in this world that you can prove beyond any shadow of a doubt exists outside of your thoughts?
When you give that answer ask yourself this:
How do you know "beyond any shadow of a doubt" that this thing exists and is not simply the result of your brain in a vat being fed impulses to your various sensory nerves?
No matter what angle you look at it there is no absolute way to prove that anything is real except for the thought of it.

So the question is not a matter of faith or belief in the unprovable.
It's a matter of having faith in the logical.

No need to read further. Soak in what was said so far and come back to this post later to read the rest or you will lose focus of what I just said.
The logical thought process:

It's logical to think that every thought of yours is connected to the same source of your conscious being in some way or you would not be able to connect anything, thereby ceasing to exist consciously.
It's logical to think that thoughts are communicated from one point of our conscious being to another, whereby they are all processed for the purpose of understanding.
These things we already know happened. Just thinking about it alone proves that it has happened, is happening & will continue to happen so longst as our consciousness remains alive.
It's logical that communication starts between our thoughts and the thoughts of something outside of our consciousness.
It's logical to think that what drives us to communicate with others is questions.
Without questions there is no desire to survive.
What causes us to ask questions remains unknown, but the fact that we ask questions is how we know we exist, therefore asking questions is how we rationalize existence.
Had we not observed another being's thoughts interacting with our own we would not have had a desire or need to communicate.
It's logical to establish common meanings of words for the purpose of communication with these other observable being's thoughts.

Everything thus far made logical sense for us to start our journey of life.
We at some point in our existence will have undergone this rationalization before attempting to rationalize anything else.
It explains how we rationalize our existence, our experiences and our need to communicate.

If what I have said above makes any sense to you then tell me this:

At what point did we change the foundation of our rationalization & our sanity, to something that does not follow the process of thoughts, experiences & communication.
What changed the system we developed for rationalizing things?

Was it an irrational thought:
A thought that says our thoughts don't have to connect to make sense.
A thought that says we don't need to communicate Rationally to make sense.
A thought that doesn't rely on your own experiences but simply the irrational thoughts of others to make sense.
A thought that says throw away rational thinking and substitute it with irrational thinking.

Ask yourself why would anyone change a good system of rationalization to adopt a system that makes no sense?
Just give one subjectively valid reason and you would at least have shown me there is some methodology to your claim that doesn't resemble insanity

1. Belief in the rational
Vs
2. Belief in the irrational

Give us 1 good reason other than "I said so" that rational thinkers should become irrational thinkers and you would have theoretically proven your point.

[Slartibartfast]

Just realised "objective aim" is redundant. Maybe "Do no harm" is just the objective of morality.

Morality:
Principles concerning the distinction between right & wrong or good & bad behaviour.I agree, my original wording was best. "Do no harm" is the objective underlying principle that can be used to distinguish between right and wrong and by extension good and bad behavior (shown below in the answers to your questions)
"do no harm" is the objective of right & wrong?No. See below
Do you know what distinction means?Yes, see above
I think you meant to say "Harm" is what we use to differentiate between right & wrong.Another less catchy, not as easy to remember way of sort of saying what I meant to say. However, it seems as though your understanding of what I have said is there. To use your wording of my idea; Can show a scenario where "harm" cannot be used to distinguish between a morally acceptable and morally unacceptable decision?
"do no harm" is the objective of good behaviour?"Do no harm" is the objective of morally right decisions. Carrying out the actions to follow through with this decision is "good behavior"
"do harm" is the objective of bad behaviour?Making a decision to choose an option that you know will cause significantly more harm than your other decisions is morally wrong. Carrying out the actions to follow through with this decision is "bad behavior"

"Good" and "bad" are inherently normative terms, so these terms can never ever be used in an objective manner.On page two I put meanings of the words "Good" and "Bad" for the context I am using it in. Absent of the definitions I put, I fully agree with this statement. That is why I put up my definitions from the very beginning.

No matter how you look at an act to determine if it's good or bad it will always be subjective.I have said this numerous times. All of morality is subjective... just not purely subjective. This is my argument. See above. You have not yet disproved this.

[MD Marketers]

Just realised "objective aim" is redundant. Maybe "Do no harm" is just the objective of morality.

Morality:
Principles concerning the distinction between right & wrong or good & bad behaviour.I agree, my original wording was best. "Do no harm" is the objective underlying principle that can be used to distinguish between right and wrong and by extension good and bad behavior (shown below in the answers to your questions)
"do no harm" is the objective of right & wrong?No. See below
Do you know what distinction means?Yes, see above
I think you meant to say "Harm" is what we use to differentiate between right & wrong.Another less catchy, not as easy to remember way of sort of saying what I meant to say. However, it seems as though your understanding of what I have said is there. To use your wording of my idea; Can show a scenario where "harm" cannot be used to distinguish between a morally acceptable and morally unacceptable decision?
"do no harm" is the objective of good behaviour?"Do no harm" is the objective of morally right decisions. Carrying out the actions to follow through with this decision is "good behavior"
"do harm" is the objective of bad behaviour?Making a decision to choose an option that you know will cause significantly more harm than your other decisions is morally wrong. Carrying out the actions to follow through with this decision is "bad behavior"

"Good" and "bad" are inherently normative terms, so these terms can never ever be used in an objective manner.On page two I put meanings of the words "Good" and "Bad" for the context I am using it in. Absent of the definitions I put, I fully agree with this statement. That is why I put up my definitions from the very beginning.

No matter how you look at an act to determine if it's good or bad it will always be subjective.I have said this numerous times. All of morality is subjective... just not purely subjective. This is my argument. See above. You have not yet disproved this.

[Slartibartfast]

objective
əbˈdʒɛktɪv/Submit
adjective
1.
(of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

subjective
səbˈdʒɛktɪv/Submit
adjective
1.
based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.


"Do no harm" is the objective underlying principle of morality (i.e. regardless of personal feelings or opinions, aiming to do as little harm in a situation as possible would lead to a morally acceptable decision being made). Stating omniscience is required does nothing to prove or disprove this statement and is therefore irrelevant. Coming up with one example where this is false however would completely disprove it. It is therefore all that is required. I am basically telling you how to disprove me so you can go ahead and do it.

The available decisions to be made will be subject to the situation and affected persons/things at hand. But regardless of the subjectivity of the situation, the decision/s can be objectively aimed at doing as little harm as possible to arrive at a morally acceptable answer.

I never claimed a middle ground. I am noting that there are different facets to morality. One of which happens to be objective. This would mean that morality is not purely subjective as you previously stated.

[MD Marketers]

Then what you are attempting to say is:
The "definition" of morality is objective. Intending no harm is objectively good.
The "application" of morality is subjective. Doing no harm is subjectively good.

I agree to this logic.

What this means is intentions can be objectively good or bad, but actions can only be subjectively good or bad.

Do you not remember me saying:
The only objectively good thing is a "good will"?
You just affirmed that.

The problem is you are saying that "actions" can be considered objectively good because of objectively good "intentions".

What I am saying is if the process of classifying something as objective relies on perspective combined with an objective definition, then that something cannot be objective.

For anything to be objective it must not be influenced by perspective.

Therefore:
1. Actions are subjectively good or bad
2. Intentions are objectively good or bad
3. Your definition of morality is an objective statement
4. Your application of the definition of morality is subjective

If you agree to all 4 then we have nothing to argue again. Let's go find some Theists to argue with.

[Slartibartfast]

Using the word "definition" in this case is pointless as the definition of almost all words are objective. Words tend to have an agreed upon meaning to facilitate communication and are, in most cases, by definition, objective. What I am talking about is the concept represented by the word "morality" so what I am trying to say is "The objective underlying principle of morality" is objective. Or to try to reach a middle ground, what if I said "the aim of morality is objective"?

I fully agree with that the "application" of morality is always subjective.

I do not know if you will still agree with this logic.

Also, note I used limited definitions of "good" and "bad" in my argument. I also used limited definitions of "right" and "wrong". I also never argued for or against anything being objective good. I stated some actions are inherently bad and that morally right decisions tend to take necessary steps to avoid it (eg. killing causes harm and the morally right thing to do would be to avoid killing if in doing so you will not create more harm). I therefore talked about morality from the standpoint of avoiding morally wrong actions (i.e. avoid harm, like aim to "do no harm"). I honestly didn't give you statement "The only objectively good thing is a "good will"" any thought. Will think on it and get back to it afterwards. It looks true at first glance. Ignore this for now while I give your statement some thought. Right now it looks like there is just some confusion with semantics.

I feel like the we agree on everything but the definitions of the words I used. So I will reword it and tell me what you think.
1. Actions can be subjectively morally right or morally wrong.
2. Some actions can be objectively harmful, although some harmful actions can be morally right
3. Intentions can be objectively morally right or morally wrong.
4. The aim of morality is objective.
5. Your application of the aim of morality is subjective

If you agree with 1-4 I'll check you in the other thread to watch some vids

EDIT: Added in #2.
Changed #3 (previously number to) from "Actions can be objectively morally right or morally wrong."

[MD Marketers]

You did it again.
You said actions are subjective & objective simultaneously.
Is this a typo?
It's like saying grey is black & white simultaneously.

Call it a new word if you wish, but it cannot be both objective & subjective at the same time. It defies logic.

[Slartibartfast]

Stupid typo fixed. Think I copy/pasted the wrong thing somewhere.