OT: Objective moral truth

[deccan]

Jack Simth said:
Wait, where was I going with this? Oh well, I got lost. No biggie.

Here's a simple way to organize all that.

In order to have an "objective morality", you must have an objective standard. With science, the standard is reality itself. If moral laws had the same sort of existence as laws of physics, then there would be no need to oblige people to obey moral laws. After all, one has no choice about obeying the laws of physics.

This is why any form of proposed "objective morality" seems to have really strange properties. They are not an ingrained part of the universe, like physical laws, yet they somehow "matter", are capable of bestowing moral obligation, must be accessible to moral beings and provide feedback to them on what is good and evil and have transcendental properties of timelessness and externality.

[Glyn]

Just my opinion.

Morals are a set of uncodified rules that a group adopts in order to interact with some expectation of predictable behavior. Different Groups can and do have different moral codes. If you are a member of a group with a common moral code then you should be able to predict what actions causes what reactions in others of the same moral group. You would be less capable of predicting reactions of members of a group that have adopted a moral code you are not familiar with, and therefore less successful in engaging in productive interactions.

There are probably sets of morals that have a reinforcing synergy so they usually found together. There are probably some morals which have a very high value to all Groups, so they are usually universally adopted.

I would find it likely that some morals could become an instinctual behavior over time, and would feel like a universal truth or law of nature.


Good morals are ones that promote the prosperity of the group over time, and therefore benefiting most of the individuals.

Bad morals are ones that negatively impact the group over time, usually benefiting the individual over the group.

[President_Elect_Shang]

I want to come back to this when I have more time to really read and think about not only the question but the answers given thus far. Until then my response comes from an Anthropological view point.

Ethics and morals and the way they are defined vary from one culture to the next. What may hold true for Western may not for Tibetan; an example is the practice of polyandry. So with that you must first decide if the question is from an ethnocentric view point or not. If you think about this it makes the whole concept Sir Ross was proposing improbable. If you are looking from it ethnocentrically than you are assuming your culture will dominate the world which is clearly too speculative. If you are not looking at the question ethnocentrically than it is not possible to fathom what culture will come to dominate the world if any one culture ever can.

So is there a “moral truth” and “is it attainable”? No there is not and no it can not be attainable as there will not be one homogonous world culture. Sir Ross wrote his book in what, the early 20th century when the Colonialism culture was still the prevalent mindset.

Edited to replace the word “impossible” with the word “improbable”.

[Puke]

oh wow. must.. resist.. urge.. to.. join..

just pretend i said something generally unsavory that endorsed situational ethics.

[PvK]

There's no morality without an opinion. Therefore there is no completely objective morality.

Morality only has meaning within a context, which must be at least personal, and perhaps also must be social.

Only with a point of view agreed upon - a religious, moral, or personal code that is consistent, is it possible to give moral judgements. Even then, they are only valid in the context of that point of view.

...

Of course, above that philisophical point, there is wide ocean of practical and applied morality, which involves multiple cultural elements and personalities, and is perhaps the broadest landscape of grey ever. Moreover, that's where morality is actually used, and to good effect.

So, some statements can be entirely morally true FOR SOME AUDIENCE, and especially so for an individual. However, it's never going to be true for everyone, unless you kill everyone who disagrees with you - welcome to Crusades, Inquisition, Jihad, and the "Wars"(tm) on Drugs and Terrorism, Intellectual Property, privacy, abortion, etc.

The better option to trying and failing to kill everyone who disagrees with you (which never works, because people tend to hate killers), is to create an isolated community. Or, to alter your morality in a way that lets you get along people who disagree with your moral code.

PvK

[Will]

Thanks all, for the comments. I'll come back to it again a bit later (perhaps even post my paper, depends how good I think it ends up being ). I think I have a bit better idea of the two viewpoints on objective morality, but... we'll see what my professor thinks.