At this point I might ask you what you both think you mean by morals being “really objective”.
I’m a fan of using other people’s definitions of words, what with the purpose of words being to communicate with other people and all.
Wikipedia does a nice job.#Objectivity_in_ethics) This article gives very concise descriptions of different types of subjective and objective ethical theories.
The basic meaning, my summary of an already very summary wikipedia article is this. Subjective ethical theories say that moral statements are LIMITED TO ones on which fully informed well-functioning rational minds could (or do?) disagree, while objective ethical theories hypothesize AT LEAST SOME moral statements which are “mind independent,” fully informed well-functioning rational minds would agree because the truth is “out there in the world” and not a creation of the mind.
Dan made an interesting point early on that ‘what was right and wrong for humans could be very different from what is right and wrong for an alien intelligence.’ On its face, I would measure this statement as an objective and moral statement, and therefore if true, this statement would be part of an objective moral theory. A slightly different statement that I would judge as objective, but not moral, would be ‘what a human believes is right and wrong may be very different from what an alien intelligence believes is right and wrong.’ In the first version, we are actually making a statement about what IS right and wrong. Saying that ANYTHING is right or wrong is a moral statement.
The fact that we say what IS right and wrong for humans and aliens might be different doesn’t make these statements any less objective, anymore than saying “it is wrong to drive on the right side of the road in Britain, but it is wrong to drive on the left side of the road in France.” is subjective. Any fully qualified moral statement will need to have the conditions under which the moral statement applies or not. If those qualifications include facts of location, genetics, rank or office, this does not make these statements subjective. As qualified, these statements are still statements about the world whose truth or falsehood would be agreed on by sufficiently informed, well-functioning rational minds.
In favor of subjective morality from my point of view is the idea that in describing human morality, I would have a hard time saying “For Saudi Arabian women, driving a car is wrong.” is a true statement. The best I could manage is “Many Saudi Arabians believe that it is wrong for a woman to drive a car.” So the idea that the moral opinions of the morons around you would actually obligate you in any way runs counter to my moral intuition.
In favor of objective morality for me is something like “for humans, picking an 8 year old human child at random and chopping off its limbs because you want to see what that feels like to do is wrong.” I can’t realistically imagine any sense in which I could ever NOT believe that. Following through on that by saying “yeah, but I can’t PROVE it so I’m going to call it subjective” seems wimpy to me. Like saying I’m going to claim I don’t think “the sun will rise tomorrow” is a true statement so I can enjoy the puerile pleasure of claiming not to need to assume induction.
Note also there don’t have to be many moral statements which are objectively true for objective morality to be the case. One will do. If there is one action that is known to be right or wrong about as well as we know the sun will rise tomorrow, then moral statements are in the same neighborhood as physical statements, and you either go the full monty solipsist and NOTHING is real, not even the sun, or you have to describe sensibly why you are willing to make the assumptions necessary to call physical truths “truths,” but the analagous assumptions needed to call moral truths “truths” is a step too far.
To summarize, to believe anything is ‘objective’ requires assumptions. One can justify those assumptions in a variety of ways, but one cannot prove them without at best being circular and at worst just being wrong. To adopt the assumptions necessary for physical realism, and then decide morality is subjective because it doesn’t prove objective under the assumptions necessary for physical realism is to only do half the job. The REASON we accept the assumptions necessary for physical realism to be objectively true is because “objectively true” is a useful concept, it helps us build things. Moral truths help us build productive societies, and possibly other things, so the concept of a Moral truth is useful. To accept some physical objective truths, but to decide that moral truths just don’t cut it is something I would expect you would have to have a good reason for.
I’m a fan of using other people’s definitions of words, what with the purpose of words being to communicate with other people and all.
Wikipedia does a nice job.#Objectivity_in_ethics) This article gives very concise descriptions of different types of subjective and objective ethical theories.
The basic meaning, my summary of an already very summary wikipedia article is this. Subjective ethical theories say that moral statements are LIMITED TO ones on which fully informed well-functioning rational minds could (or do?) disagree, while objective ethical theories hypothesize AT LEAST SOME moral statements which are “mind independent,” fully informed well-functioning rational minds would agree because the truth is “out there in the world” and not a creation of the mind.
Dan made an interesting point early on that ‘what was right and wrong for humans could be very different from what is right and wrong for an alien intelligence.’ On its face, I would measure this statement as an objective and moral statement, and therefore if true, this statement would be part of an objective moral theory. A slightly different statement that I would judge as objective, but not moral, would be ‘what a human believes is right and wrong may be very different from what an alien intelligence believes is right and wrong.’ In the first version, we are actually making a statement about what IS right and wrong. Saying that ANYTHING is right or wrong is a moral statement.
The fact that we say what IS right and wrong for humans and aliens might be different doesn’t make these statements any less objective, anymore than saying “it is wrong to drive on the right side of the road in Britain, but it is wrong to drive on the left side of the road in France.” is subjective. Any fully qualified moral statement will need to have the conditions under which the moral statement applies or not. If those qualifications include facts of location, genetics, rank or office, this does not make these statements subjective. As qualified, these statements are still statements about the world whose truth or falsehood would be agreed on by sufficiently informed, well-functioning rational minds.
In favor of subjective morality from my point of view is the idea that in describing human morality, I would have a hard time saying “For Saudi Arabian women, driving a car is wrong.” is a true statement. The best I could manage is “Many Saudi Arabians believe that it is wrong for a woman to drive a car.” So the idea that the moral opinions of the morons around you would actually obligate you in any way runs counter to my moral intuition.
In favor of objective morality for me is something like “for humans, picking an 8 year old human child at random and chopping off its limbs because you want to see what that feels like to do is wrong.” I can’t realistically imagine any sense in which I could ever NOT believe that. Following through on that by saying “yeah, but I can’t PROVE it so I’m going to call it subjective” seems wimpy to me. Like saying I’m going to claim I don’t think “the sun will rise tomorrow” is a true statement so I can enjoy the puerile pleasure of claiming not to need to assume induction.
Note also there don’t have to be many moral statements which are objectively true for objective morality to be the case. One will do. If there is one action that is known to be right or wrong about as well as we know the sun will rise tomorrow, then moral statements are in the same neighborhood as physical statements, and you either go the full monty solipsist and NOTHING is real, not even the sun, or you have to describe sensibly why you are willing to make the assumptions necessary to call physical truths “truths,” but the analagous assumptions needed to call moral truths “truths” is a step too far.
To summarize, to believe anything is ‘objective’ requires assumptions. One can justify those assumptions in a variety of ways, but one cannot prove them without at best being circular and at worst just being wrong. To adopt the assumptions necessary for physical realism, and then decide morality is subjective because it doesn’t prove objective under the assumptions necessary for physical realism is to only do half the job. The REASON we accept the assumptions necessary for physical realism to be objectively true is because “objectively true” is a useful concept, it helps us build things. Moral truths help us build productive societies, and possibly other things, so the concept of a Moral truth is useful. To accept some physical objective truths, but to decide that moral truths just don’t cut it is something I would expect you would have to have a good reason for.