Objective Moral Truth

Perhaps there are no universally-held moral principles. I would argue that perhaps we should look to evolution for a path- specifically, that efficiency tends to dominate for a reason- it gets things done better. Now I agree that efficiency is somewhat complex- we certainly don't want Hitler's efficiency in eliminating people. -However-, it could be argued that there were very many inneficient things about Hitler's regime and it's those things that truly brought it down. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the works of noted biologist Richard Dawkins? He definitely doesn't like the idea of god, -but-, in the second edition of his book "The Selfish Gene", his last chapter is titled "Good Guys Finish First". In the chapter, I found that he provided conclusive proof that in many social environments, being kind to others was actually an evolutionarily sound principle. He also mentions, however, that one must be wary of others who take but don't give back. I believe that this is the true root of such things as being nicer (and more generous) to those who are nice and generous to you. I even believe that it is the root of revenge/punishment (they are sometimes different, but not always) and I believe is the basis for any sound society.

 

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"Objective" means something that exists in reality regardless of our beliefs. Protons have a certain mass, and that mass doesn't change if our opinions about it changes. If we disagree about the mass of a proton, at least one of us is wrong.

I am not sure what you mean by "objective physical nature." If you mean do humans physically exist, then yes, I think they do...

This came up in another thread a few months ago. The Sawi tribe from the Amazon rain forest that didn't see anything wrong with lying or betrayal, or at least they didn't before the christians started converting them. A successful liar is considered clever, and the person who is fooled is assumed to have justly "had it coming to him" simply by virtue of the fact that the liar was able to fool him. As I recall when the first christian missionaries reached them and tried to teach them about christianity, at first the natives completely misunderstood the point of the story where Judas betrays Jesus - they thought that Judas was the hero because he was able to successfully trick god himself. But on the other hand, the same tribe considered things like stealing or killing to be wrong, so it's not like they were amoral.

As for "violence as a last resort," I suspect that a ship full of Viking raiders who were on their way to southern Europe for a little fun and profitable pillaging would disagree with you.

And as I said, even if there are universally-held moral principles, so what? That merely proves that some moral systems are more likely to produce stable and successful societies. You can use "what's best for society" as a basis for a moral system if you want, but that's an arbitrary decision; someone else might want a different basis, and there's no objective way to show that yours is correct.

 

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Human objective morality CAN exist. There is a small potential. Objective morality is the common ground where all moral beliefs connect. The confusion of the issue is that no one is objective. Objective morality is not in practice, so one could say therefore it is a fantasy. Who can define it? It would have to be an alien or god of sorts, who does not coexist with the human species. Or are we talking about a universal morality? That it is impossible!

Religion is a poor attempt at universal morality, and its gods (who define objective morality) fail to demonstrate consistent behavior that would establish morality. Gods are too unpredictable, and they would be the only way to attempt to have universal objective morality.

 

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God as everything devoids the word god of any meaning.
I don't see any shards. Are they hiding from me?

 

Last I checked, the term 'everything' had meaning- if I'm saying my definition of God is (at times) everything, then why shouldn't it work out?

Every bit of reality, energy, matter, etc.; it is all, in my view, simply shards of God.

Ofcourse, when frightened, I prefer to think of God as Good, and someone who will save me from (the d)evil

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. I'm not sure if God would do any such thing, with this mortal coil at any rate, but it feels reassuring at the time ;-).

 

Then god is just another word for the universe. We already have a word for the universe. It's universe. Your "definition" has no meaning.

 

Some say everything is a multiverse. For this reason, I prefer the term everything. The term "God", in my mind, adds a certain consciousness to it. One or both of my parents read a book called "The conscious universe". I didn't and it looks like it generally treats with psi phenomena, but I like the idea of a conscious universe. And if some people like calling it God instead of 'everything' or universe or multiverse or what not, I don't see why there should be a problem. To paraphrase Frank Herbert He says it in God: Emperor of Dune, but I couldn't find the quote), a word can have any meaning you like.

Update: found an searchable online version of the book and found the actual quote from God: Emporer of Dune..
"Reality... that is a very ambiguous word, Lord."
"Indeed! But Siaynoq also stands for..."
"All of that in a single word, Lord?"
"And more!..."
"A great burden for one word, Lord."
"Words can carry any burden we wish. All that's required is agreement and a tradition upon which to build."

 

The word god had more than enough definitions. WHY do you insist on trying to add another useless 1???

Sounds like Alice In Wonderland. Silly nonsense.

 

Stranger, why must you insist on imposing your views on me? -I- don't think that it's "another useless 1". And since I define what God means to me, I think you should respect that.

I personally liked Alice in Wonderland very much

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. My father used to joke that my mother was always late late late, for a very important date, laugh

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. I'm a bit of a fan of Heinlein too actually, though I've only read one of his books (one with non flying dragon type creatures in it).

 

It's not a matter of imposing my views. Supposedly, you are attempting to communicate something. The words you attempt to use have definitions.
I should not respect people trying to twist words to mean whatever they want them to mean.

 

Also a slight paraphrase of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

I so not believe that is true when judged from a relativistic standpoint. Say my friend Bill, age 30, approaches the event horizon of a supermassive black hole (to avoid tidal stress, easier to use a big one). I am observing him from very far away. From my perspective, as Bill approaches the event horizon, time slows for him. If he were to reach the event horizon, from my perspective, time stops for him, but he never quite reaches it as far as I can see. He will red shift beyond the ability of my feeble eyes to see him, but he will always be there, falling very slowly. If I measure Bills age my my own calendar (as is most normal, and there is no objective rule requiring me to do so in another way), Bill will still be alive (radiation and other local hazards permitting) for a very long time. Ignoring all those other hazards, in fact, likely until the black hole evaporates. Is Bill still 30 then? Obviously, it's all relative.

From a non-relativistic perspective my point was that if we cannot agree on the scientific evidence regarding the age of the Earth (and not everyone can), and that evidence is largely a question of empirical fact, then it will be all the more impossible to get people to agree on a "goal" or arbitrary criteria underlying and justifying morality. Those principles will themselves not be objectively demonstrable, and all the more controversial. Even if everyone were to agree today, in any event, that would not even be evidence that everyone is *right* to agree...we could all be wrong.

It could well be that their is such a principle (though I have difficulty imagining how except in a theistic universe), and that all morality flows as a logical consequence from it, but people would not know that there is such an underlying principle without proof, and many would reject it. Those people, in that case, would be *wrong* to reject the resulting objective morality, but there would be no objective way to demonstrate that (on Earth, at least).

Kant liked to believe that his ethical system flowed from pure Reason and logic. Were that true, then he would have a strong case to make that morality is objective, because logic is objective. Logic also has the strength of allowing for formal logical proofs that can be used to demonstrate the correctness of certain propositions and the falseness of others. Of course, most would concede that he failed to develop his theory using pure logic, but instead had a few hidden assumptions that drove his thinking.

It also led to results that seem bizarre, like his gedanken about a man who hides from a murderer, and the murderer asking you where the man is hiding. You know the man will be killed, but Kant is adamant that it would be wrong to lie, even then. Consequences did not count in his ethical system, only the development of sound rules based on sound intentions (though one is never presumed to have intended the consequences in such a deontological system).

 

That does not conflict with "betrayal is wrong" - it merely identifies betrayal differently. Lying and trickery are not betrayals - that does not mean that betrayal does not exist in that culture.

And I am not playing with words here - the objective moral nature of human beings, if any, exists on that level. "Betrayal is wrong" - but what exactly constitutes betrayal, what is an expectation that should be fulfilled, is socially established.

And you recognize them by objectively definable characteristics. They have an objective physical nature. Of a given physical property, such as bipedalism or a prehensile tail, you can label it as a property of humans or not on objective criteria. You do not discover these criteria by reasoning from axioms, but by measurement and observation and so forth.

Likewise with morality.

 

No. There are lots of people who believe unnecessary harm is justified or even good for you ("builds character").

I already threw that one in the hat.

Wouldn't surprise me, it certainly works on me, so you may have found a gray area even here.

People are complex.

 

Not usually. Just look at our society. You think meat is evil. I like lamb medium rare. The majority of the society is on my side but is that objective agreement?

I frankly don't see any universal agreement on morality.

 

iceaura, James R:

It might be (and in fact probably is) objectively true that there are certain elements of moral philosophy that are shared by most or all human cultures. But that doesn't mean that those morals are objectively "true" in any sort of fundamental, cosmic sense like the gravitational constant or the mass of a proton. It merely means that many people share them, and/or that they tend to promote stable, prosperous societies. So while I certainly agree that it's objectively true that some morals are very popular, that doesn't mean that the morals themselves are objectively "correct".

 

I would be more interested in moral structures shared by almost all mentally normal humans.

Their expression would of course vary by culture - analogous to languages.

And they would be just as "true" as bipedalism or opposed thumbs, and for the same reasons.

 

It would be true that the moral structures are agreed upon, in the same way that thumbs or bipedalism are agreed upon to be characteristics of humans. It wouldn't necessarily be true that the claims of the moral structures are "correct" or "true" in the same way that an objective claim can be true. Saying "thumbs exist" is an objectively true claim. Saying "It's wrong to kill people" is not an objectively true claim.

 

The term God has many definitions, yes. You may find that the way people define God is truly varied indeed. I'm certainly not alone in defining God as everything and/or defining God as a duality between good and evil or dark and light.

A word can mean whatever we like. While many words are relatively fixed in terms of what society takes them to mean, the term God is perhaps one of the most variable. I would argue I like the type of Star Wars idea of a force being everywhere, and would simply expand it to also be everything. Whether or not you like the way I define God, I'm not going to change my definition just so that you're more comfortable, sorry.

I leave you once more with Frank Herbert's words from his book, God: Emperor of Dune:
"Reality... that is a very ambiguous word, Lord."
"Indeed! But Siaynoq also stands for..."
"All of that in a single word, Lord?"
"And more!..."
"A great burden for one word, Lord."
"Words can carry any burden we wish. All that's required is agreement and a tradition upon which to build."

I would contend that he means that there must be agreement with the parties that the person would like to communicate with on the word. Siaynoq, for instance, was a word that was usually reserved for his Fish Speakers; if virtually anyone else were to here it, it would probably mean nothing at all to them and he'd be fine with that. Words can be doors, but you need to know and accept what is meant by the person or group you speak to in order to be able to unlock them.

 

“You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.”
George W. Bush

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
George W. Bush