WLC's Moral Ontology Argument

[Ihateyoumike]

It takes faith to believe in anything, it takes faith to believe that I am not the product of a disgruntled child who decided way back to create a toy universe in which he would show his anger by creating a delusional reality in which all this universe's inhabitants would assume that they were conscious and rational beings, when in fact they were programmed puppets who were oblivious to reality.
Obviously it takes me and you VERY little faith to believe that this isn't true but I think it proves my point.

Why would it take any faith at all to believe in something there's absolutely no proof for?

It's just as easy for me to not believe in your disgruntled child as it is for me to not believe in your god, because as far as I'm concerned, there's no evidence for either one that would make me believe they exist. It takes no faith not to believe in something that has no proof, and it takes faith to believe in something that has no proof.

I don't have faith in any god, because I have been given no good reason to believe they exist.

[Tom62]

My 2cts. We have a build in self preservation "system", so it is normal that we don't want something bad to happen to us that causes us pain, fear, discomfort or death. Like most mammals, humans are social creatures, who care for their offspring. It is only natural that we don't want bad things happen to the people we care about either. This is where then the basic "moral" rules come from, like honor your mother and father, thou shall not kill, lie, steal,  etc.

Since we can't survive on our own, we are part of various social groups that are buildup in different layers and size. The greater the group, the more abstract they become for us and the less we can emotionally "connect" to them. First group would be the family; the second group our friends and acquaintances; the third group the local community (with whom we have to deal with on a regular basis); the fourth group could be the village our part of town that we live in; the fifth group the district, etc. etc.. After the fourth group we can already see a diminishing emotional effect taking place. Reason for this is that becomes much harder for us to have emotional "ties" with people that we don't know in person. The further they are away from us, the less we can identify with them.

Apart from that we also live in different social groups, that can be identified by culture, ideology and religion. This is where  "moral" codes come from like, thou shall believe what we do, eat what our scriptures allow you to eat, wear what we think is decent clothing, judge people the way we do, treat your women like we do, have sex the way we do, etc.  etc. Some of them could make sense, but I believe that these rules are highly subjective and most of the time irrelevant from a moral point of view (unless these rules have the intention to harm other people). In these type of groups it is even more difficult to have sympathy for people, who belong to a different group than ours. After all they don't think the way we do or don't act the way we do. They are different. This website is a very good example of this. Since atheist have different opinions than deists, there is much misunderstanding between these two groups and (quite often) we show little respect for each other.

Each group has its self preservation at interest. For that reason it establishes certain written and unwritten rules of how people should behave in those groups. It will also do (almost) anything to survive. For that reason we have seen many examples in human history of wars between tribes, villages, cities, countries, cultures religions, ideologies, etc. Whenever it is "US" against "THEM", we seem to have no problems to put our basic moral "teachings" aside. Only in more recent times, rational people have seen the "light" that war in general is not such a good idea (maybe because the don't want to see their own children die in one of them). For that reason, they'll try to stop or limit them (like within the highly ineffective United Nations and the International Court of Justice); or make them less worse (like the Geneva Conventions, which even Nazi-Germany respected but many more "civilized" countries do not). But that is a different story.

It is difficult for us humans to overcome our tribal fears and instincts; and finally start to treat every other living being the way that we we would like to be treated ourselves. We need to solve that problem on our own, because so far we haven't seen any sign that we will receive any direct help from outsiders ( whether that would be a divine being or a well advanced alien civilization).

[VanReal]

There is no conflict in the "thinking" that something is immoral, its when someone acts out and imposes his/her own view of morality on someone who shares a different view which I think is a both arrogant and naive accusation for someone who does not believe in objective morality.

This is the problem, those who think their morals are objective feel they are the only ones justified in taking action.  So, one who believes their morals are objective and others' are subjective create the delimmas between different groups and societies.  To use your favorite example, the terrorists of 9/11 believe their morals are objective and have no regard for those they attack because we infedels are not following those objective morals.  You think subjective morals are dangerous, it's really the other way around.  Rules, morals, codes being subjective allows for flexiblility in order for societies to thrive and hopefully eventually allow for those in disagreement to co-exist. (Although that is unlikely because some groups will continue to believe they are the objective ones so there is no need to compromise.)

when I said stating I didn't simply mean sharing an opinion, I should have been more clear and I apologize for that. What I mean't was that the Atheist has no basis by which he could ever impose his/her morals on another being which disagrees without showing inconsistency. Why should anyone listen to what I have to say, if I only think that what I have to say is true for me, my beliefs and my societies beliefs ect.

That's just it, because we live in societies composed of many different groups of thought and behavior.  We are individuals trying to live together in groups, there has to be inconsistency because we are humans not drones, and the thought of a one true moral is what causes opression, violence, and threats to the existence of any group not willing to adhere to that inflexible agenda/ideal.

You are right, many theists believe objective morality exists and they each cling to their own thoughts of what those are.  That fact only strengthens the argument that those morals are subjective because each group is defining them according to their belief system, tradition and culture.

[SSY]

When you said murder runs contrary to god, what does that mean? God has murdered far more people than even the most accomplished serial killer. If you state murder is wrong, in and of itself, then god is not required for an absolute morality, as it is the acts themselves that are wrong, and people should be able to figure it out.

What do you mean by "murder runs contrary to god", I would like to know.

The photons can be proved to have a specefic wavlength by deductive reasoning. If we take the premise that

E=hf
and c=fw

Then a simple measurement of the photons energy can determine its frequency, and hence it's wavlength. The equations have been verified by countless experiments, they can be derived from the very bedrock of science and gemoetry. We also know the avlue of C and h with incredible accuracy, we could determine the wavlength of the photons to an accuracy better than 1 part in 100000.  If you accept the 4 axioms of euclidean geometry, and the wavelike treatment of photons, then these conclusions follow on naturally ( I won't bore you with many, many pages of maths ). This is as objective as it is possible to be.

Sure, I cant prove we are not part of some huge illusion or imaginary world, that is an unfalsifiable claim, but just because it cannot be disproved, does that mean you should beleive in it?  By the same argument, one would not believe in god either, as we could all just be brains in jars and "god" is just a characteristic of the life support system designed to keep us in line, one would not beleive in anything if they took this line of reasoning seriously, as there an infinite number of mutually exclusive realities, non of which are supported by evidence, that would be impossible to disprove.

Do you beleive in somthing just because it cannot be disproven?

Yes, the rape of children is only wrong by our standards. However, even with this we are still justified in locking up those who rape children. They know raping kids is against the law, if they do it, we will jail them, if they wish to pursue this activity somewhere else, where they will not be jailed, they are free to leave. In the example of the 9/11 attacks, only wrong by our standards again, however, americans would have been justified in killing the hijackers, as it was over american soil, and therefore, subject to american law. If they don't wish to be subject to american law, stay out of america, simple.

Your argument for why murder is wrong is because we "know" it is wrong. Are you joking me? Do you actually beleive in that? Let me demonstrate the madness inherent in your argument. You are a 30 foot high elephant, hiding inside a man suit. I do not have to provide any evidence for this, because I know it is true. See how that works?

So let me see if I have your response to my bit in red right.

You believe that the people in the world, act in a moral manner, you believe that subjective morals are not workable as way to guide your decisions. Therefor, in order to keep your first belief that people do act morally, there must be some toher form of morality ( other than subjective ) that is workable. You believe this to be objective morality.

Is that right? I would like you to affirm that, or point out what differs about your argument, so that when I point out the many, many things wrong with it, I cannot be accused of a strawman.

[Recusant]

... I will take the position of a classical theist and respond as if I were one...

Thank you.  It's much better if a position, once adopted, is advanced and defended, rather than being changed without that change being acknowledged.  It was you, after all, who chose to discuss this subject from a theist perspective. (I've understood your meaning of 'theist' to be that of one who, while not adopting any particular religion as defining their position, none the less regards at least one religion as a true view of the world and argues a defense of religion in general, rather than in specific.)  I appreciate your willingness to maintain that perspective.  If you choose to argue from a Christian perspective (and I have no problem if you do) please make that quite clear. It does seem that to some extent, we are talking about Christianity, but I'm fine with doing so within a more generalized framework.

While certain religious institutes (Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Sunni, Sufi, Shiite, Buddhist ect.) heck, most of them believe that this is the case I disagree, obviously I think it is important to search for morality in the issues of this day and age, I do not think that salvation or damnation hinges upon deeds or positions on moral issues (abortion, homosexuality, capitol punishment ect.) but that's just foolish ol' me talkin.

We are talking about eternal damnation here.  Buddhism does not propose that such a thing exists. Quite the contrary, from my understanding of Buddhist dogma.  The Buddhist believes that it is impossible for a soul to be left behind or "lost," because that soul, which resides in every person, is a manifestation of the Buddha nature.  It is an inevitable fact that Buddha nature returns to itself however many eons it may take, in their belief.  Just so you know.
Reading the above quote, a question comes to mind:  If salvation does not hinge on deeds or positions, what is the incentive to find and uphold the true objective morality?  

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them

(note: I'm not sure what this forum's stance on posting religious material is; If I broke any rule please forgive, and I accept any required banning/punishments. As I mentioned before, I am new to this forums etiquette.)

I think there is no rule against quoting portions of religious works here to illustrate specific points.  The only time I've noticed complaints about including such quotes within posts was when one member of this forum routinely pasted paragraphs of "their book" which seemed not even remotely relevant to the subject of the thread.  However, by quoting the Christian Bible, I take it you are arguing from a Christian perspective, at least in this instance.  
You seem here to imply that to some extent the morals that people have are "written in their hearts" by a god.  However, sin has blurred that writing, so that even a believer must spend time deciding on moral questions.  But on the other hand, even non-believers have the writing, and so are still guided by it.  You know of course that assertions like this cannot really be disputed.  I will share my view on "written in their hearts" though:  Any morality inherent to humanity, and not learned so much as pre-programed, is a result of millions of years of evolution as a social species, not influence of any particular mythical being, or group of beings.  I have doubts that this inheritance even qualifies as morality, given the wide range of behaviors that have been considered acceptable, even in the times for which we have some sort of record. I think in fact, that behaviors we have inherited, and thus have "written in (our) hearts" can only by the roughest approximation be called morality.

Next, you ask me to provide an example of objective truth, based on objective fact.

  It is an objective truth that gravity is a property of matter, based on the objective facts obtained by observing interactions of matter.  As you can see, I'm hiding behind that old adversary of religion, science.  I don't think that we will come up with any better way of knowing the universe we inhabit than science, and so I'm willing to accept only such objective truth as can be arrived at by that route.

It takes faith to believe in anything, it takes faith to believe that I am not the product of a disgruntled child who decided way back to create a toy universe in which he would show his anger by creating a delusional reality in which all this universe's inhabitants would assume that they were conscious and rational beings, when in fact they were programmed puppets who were oblivious to reality.
Obviously it takes me and you VERY little faith to believe that this isn't true but I think it proves my point.

We'll have to put this down to different understandings of what faith is.  As I understand it, faith exists, and is only necessary, when there is no proof for the thing believed in. Notice that I am saying faith is an attribute  of belief, not disbelief.  It is in the absence of faith that disbelief prevails.  Thus, while theism is dependent on faith, atheism is simply a lack thereof. The atheist position, since it does not assert, but denies the unprovable, does not require faith.   You seem to say that it takes faith to disbelieve something, but to me that makes no sense.  In the dictionary, it does not say, "Firm belief in the nonexistence of something for which there is no proof."  The definition consists of the words not underlined.

I would tell you if I found myself frustrated by our dialog, but I don't think that's likely.  This is the Philosophy section of HAF; I consider philosophy to be the interplay of ideas.  Once the potential for that interplay has been realized, one simply moves on to the next interesting point.
 

I am happy we seem to agree on some things, I thought your posts in this thread have been very good so far. The considered nature of your typing also shows, maybe I should start drafting my posts. . . .

At the risk of seeming to be a mutual admiration society, I'll say that your thoughts on my writings here are reciprocated.
I hadn't noticed any deficiencies is your typing, and in fact all I was talking about was the fact that during the time I was writing my last response, you had arrived here and posted a response of approximately the same volume and quality, and been on your way, before I finished mine.

[AlP]

I'm replying to the question in the OP. I have been following this thread though and I have read all the posts. My take on this is different from the atheist posters so far. I see a few flaws in "WLC's moral ontology argument". Actually the first flaw is in the first sentence.

If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.

An objective fact is one that is discovered or discoverable rather than created by a conscious mind. That is, an objective fact does not hinge on the judgment of any human being or deity. It is simply so. The moral value of something (like a thought, statement or action) is a measure of its goodness or importance. We often talk about "our" moral values. By that we often mean those moral values we look for in a thought, statement or action to determine whether it is desirable or important. We might also be talking about a person's virtue. By those definitions, there are numerous objective moral values that do not rely on the existence of a deity. I will give two examples.

The first objective moral value relates to fairness. It is often straightforward to measure fairness objectively. For example, if I am distributing food, I can measure how much food I am giving to each person and I can adopt that as an objective moral value. I can generalize that concept of fairness and so long as I have a way of objectively measuring the cost or benefit to the people involved, it is an objective moral value. My choosing this moral value over another is subjective. But the measure of "good stuff" I give and in what proportion is not open to interpretation. It is an objective fact that I gave a certain amount to this person, and a certain amount to that one, etc.

My second example is related to "thou shalt not kill". Can we determine, objectively, whether a person is dead? In some cases there might be a interval during which doctor's will argue, especially with the advent of life support machines and the like. That may be subjective. But it is obviously the case that sometimes we can know whether a person is alive. An objective measure would be whether they can tell you their name. Not everyone will be able to tell you their name (infants for example) but the majority will. My point isn't to come up with a good way to determine whether someone is alive, just to demonstrate that there are objective measures that can tell you when they certainly are. Dead people don't speak their name. Sometimes we can be certain that a person is dead (objective measures would be if they have stopped breathing and / or have had no pulse for a certain amount of time). So when I adopt aliveness as a moral value and decide that I should not kill humans, I can call it an objective moral value with respect to any objective measure of human aliveness I want. Again the choice to adopt this moral value is subjective as is the choice of aliveness measure but the fact that people are alive or dead simply is.

You might argue that what was objective in these examples was the measure rather than the moral value itself. But that's what a moral value is. It's a measure of something ethically interesting, whether it's a measure of a person's aliveness or a measure of how closely we are following a deity's will. The choice to adopt certain moral values and not others is subjective. Fortunately the author does not claim that we require the existence of a deity in order to make such choices.

To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is right or wrong independently of whether anybody believes it to be so.

A moral value is objective if it is independent of the standpoint of an observer. And nobody need actually believe it. So far I am in agreement I think. However "something is right or wrong"! We don't all make moral decisions by determining whether they are "right" or "wrong". Many people use other measures. I personally think it's rather shallow to rely on "right" and "wrong". Why give food to the hungry because it's right? I prefer to give it because they're hungry. The "right" versus "wrong" issue shows a religious bias. An objective moral value need not be "right" or "wrong". I prefer those like "alive" versus "dead" or "fed" versus "hungry". I know many (most?) people do use the concepts of "right" and "wrong". I'm pointing out that they have no place in a general definition of objective moral value.

It is to say, for example, that Nazi anti-Semitism was morally wrong, even though the Nazis who carried out the Holocaust thought that it was good; and it would still be wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them.

This is the issue of moral absolutism versus moral relativism. I am a moral relativist. I know the Nazis killed millions of people during the Holocaust, a horrible consequence and a horrible intent from my point of view. But the Nazi's may well have thought that what they were doing was good. I wouldn't bet on that though. Reading Hitler's Mein Kampf gave me the impression that Hitler may not have had sufficient respect for the Jews to incorporate them into his moral decisions. That's irrelevant to this argument though. It's easy to come up with examples of moral issues where peoples' opinions differ.

I think the author is a little confused. Moral absolutism is not the same as objective moral values. Moral absolutism would be very hard to justify without belief in the supernatural. That's why I take a moral relativist position. Nihilism is another position compatible with atheism.

And the claim is that in the absence of God, moral values are not objective in this sense.

So he's saying that in the absence of God, we would not be able to determine that people died in the Holocaust? Or is death subjective? Maybe the Jews are still alive! We can never know without God! Thinking that we should not kill is not the only moral value that can be objective with no requirement for a deity. To be clear, I'm not saying that the choice to not kill is objective. I'm saying that it is objective fact that millions of people died during the Holocaust and the death count is an objective moral value.

This is getting rather long and I think his whole argument hinges on the first paragraph so I won't bother with the rest unless anyone is interested. His main flaw seems to be that he has a rather narrow and somewhat confused view of what moral value means. He also confuses moral absolutism with the objectivity of moral values.

[Phillysoul11]

I leave for a day and I have all these great responses waiting for me

Why would it take any faith at all to believe in something there's absolutely no proof for?

It's just as easy for me to not believe in your disgruntled child as it is for me to not believe in your god, because as far as I'm concerned, there's no evidence for either one that would make me believe they exist. It takes no faith not to believe in something that has no proof, and it takes faith to believe in something that has no proof.

I don't have faith in any god, because I have been given no good reason to believe they exist.

I think you are arguing against blind faith (or faith that lacks any evidence) when you state that it takes no faith NOT to believe in something you are correct, but to believe in anything at all you must have faith, if you believe that reality exists, even when you nor anyone else can prove it, you have faith, albeit it takes much less. To avoid further confusion, when I refer to faith I am referring to the belief in something that has not or cannot be proven. If reality cannot be proven, than nothing can be proven. If nothing is proven, than to believe in anything requires faith ect.
now if you don't agree with my definition we can argue semantics but for now, I just wanted to give you an idea of where I'm coming from when I throw that word around.

My 2cts. We have a build in self preservation "system", so it is normal that we don't want something bad to happen to us that causes us pain, fear, discomfort or death. Like most mammals, humans are social creatures, who care for their offspring. It is only natural that we don't want bad things happen to the people we care about either. This is where then the basic "moral" rules come from, like honor your mother and father, thou shall not kill, lie, steal, etc.

Since we can't survive on our own, we are part of various social groups that are buildup in different layers and size. The greater the group, the more abstract they become for us and the less we can emotionally "connect" to them. First group would be the family; the second group our friends and acquaintances; the third group the local community (with whom we have to deal with on a regular basis); the fourth group could be the village our part of town that we live in; the fifth group the district, etc. etc.. After the fourth group we can already see a diminishing emotional effect taking place. Reason for this is that becomes much harder for us to have emotional "ties" with people that we don't know in person. The further they are away from us, the less we can identify with them.

Apart from that we also live in different social groups, that can be identified by culture, ideology and religion. This is where "moral" codes come from like, thou shall believe what we do, eat what our scriptures allow you to eat, wear what we think is decent clothing, judge people the way we do, treat your women like we do, have sex the way we do, etc. etc. Some of them could make sense, but I believe that these rules are highly subjective and most of the time irrelevant from a moral point of view (unless these rules have the intention to harm other people). In these type of groups it is even more difficult to have sympathy for people, who belong to a different group than ours. After all they don't think the way we do or don't act the way we do. They are different. This website is a very good example of this. Since atheist have different opinions than deists, there is much misunderstanding between these two groups and (quite often) we show little respect for each other.

Each group has its self preservation at interest. For that reason it establishes certain written and unwritten rules of how people should behave in those groups. It will also do (almost) anything to survive. For that reason we have seen many examples in human history of wars between tribes, villages, cities, countries, cultures religions, ideologies, etc. Whenever it is "US" against "THEM", we seem to have no problems to put our basic moral "teachings" aside. Only in more recent times, rational people have seen the "light" that war in general is not such a good idea (maybe because the don't want to see their own children die in one of them). For that reason, they'll try to stop or limit them (like within the highly ineffective United Nations and the International Court of Justice); or make them less worse (like the Geneva Conventions, which even Nazi-Germany respected but many more "civilized" countries do not). But that is a different story.

It is difficult for us humans to overcome our tribal fears and instincts; and finally start to treat every other living being the way that we we would like to be treated ourselves. We need to solve that problem on our own, because so far we haven't seen any sign that we will receive any direct help from outsiders ( whether that would be a divine being or a well advanced alien civilization).

thank you for your assessment of the situation. If I am interpreting you correctly (let me know if i'm not) you listing reasons, which explain why humanity makes moral decisions, and I think you have some really interesting points, but I am (at the moment) concerned with the foundation in reality of moral values (moral ontology). Not how we come to know right/wrong ect (moral epistemology). Regardless it was a very interesting post and I'm glad you shared! Again, if I misinterpreted please let me know.

This is the problem, those who think their morals are objective feel they are the only ones justified in taking action. So, one who believes their morals are objective and others' are subjective create the delimmas between different groups and societies. To use your favorite example, the terrorists of 9/11 believe their morals are objective and have no regard for those they attack because we infedels are not following those objective morals. You think subjective morals are dangerous, it's really the other way around. Rules, morals, codes being subjective allows for flexiblility in order for societies to thrive and hopefully eventually allow for those in disagreement to co-exist. (Although that is unlikely because some groups will continue to believe they are the objective ones so there is no need to compromise.)

Both those who adhere to objective and subjective morality could very well take their ideologies to a dangerous conclusion . I am arguing that subjective morality is absurd, not dangerous (although it very well could be)

You are right, many theists believe objective morality exists and they each cling to their own thoughts of what those are. That fact only strengthens the argument that those morals are subjective because each group is defining them according to their belief system, tradition and culture.

I fail to see how a group defining their moral system according to their beliefs, makes their belief in objective morality subjective. You and I might think it is subjective, but that doesn't change the fact that it either is, or isn't objective. I'm not sure I'm quite following your logic, please clarify.  :raised:
When did I argue that things are wrong simply because we "know" they are wrong? We all have different ideas of right/wrong so arguing that would make morality subjective. I mentioned that we know (for instance) rape is wrong, but knowing this does not make it wrong, it merely recognizes it. I'm not sure if you are referring to something else...let me know.

**comments in bold**

So let me see if I have your response to my bit in red right.

You believe that the people in the world, act in a moral manner (not always) you believe that subjective morals are not workable as way to guide your decisions.(no, they can guide your decisions, great, I'm sure they can. it just that those decisions are made up of your personal opinions, don't ever try and force them on someone else or you will be living an inconsistent life. Therefor, in order to keep your first belief that people do act morally,there must be some toher form of morality ( other than subjective ) that is workable corresponds to reality. You believe this to be objective morality.

Is that right? I would like you to affirm that, or point out what differs about your argument, so that when I point out the many, many things wrong with it, I cannot be accused of a strawman.

If salvation does not hinge on deeds or positions, what is the incentive to find and uphold the true objective morality?

I know its a cliche one, but I'll offer a theists explaination. Since God loved us, died for us ect. ect. we should show our gratitude by living our lives according to his standard of morality, not ours. Also while punishment/damnation do not hinge on our moral acts, punishment/reward still do.

It is an objective truth that gravity is a property of matter, based on the objective facts obtained by observing interactions of matter. As you can see, I'm hiding behind that old adversary of religion, science. I don't think that we will come up with any better way of knowing the universe we inhabit than science, and so I'm willing to accept only such objective truth as can be arrived at by that route.

Yes, but Science itself is based off of assumptions which cannot be objectively proven, science cannot account for many things, this being said it has a vitally  important role to play in the understanding of the universe. Evidence is the compass in which we determine the ideology we hold.

We'll have to put this down to different understandings of what faith is. As I understand it, faith exists, and is only necessary, when there is no proof for the thing believed in. Notice that I am saying faith is an attribute of belief, not disbelief. It is in the absence of faith that disbelief prevails. Thus, while theism is dependent on faith, atheism is simply a lack thereof. The atheist position, since it does not assert, but denies the unprovable, does not require faith. You seem to say that it takes faith to disbelieve something, but to me that makes no sense. In the dictionary, it does not say, "Firm belief in the nonexistence of something for which there is no proof." The definition consists of the words not underlined.

I mentioned what I believe faith to be a little earlier this post, one could say that faith is a belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith If you deny the existence of something, you most likely have reasons (no evidence ect.) these reasons, are based off of ideas which do require faith
ex. Person #1  says that it does not take faith to not believe in unicorns as there is no evidence for the unicorns.
Person #2 says that  by stating there is no evidence person#1 is implying that evidence (in an abstract form) exists, and when one asserts that evidence exists #1 is implying that he/ she believes that evidence does exist. This belief is based on #1's belief that a reality exists in which evidence for things exist ect. ect. ect.

For one to have no faith (as defined by me) that person would not believe in anything, which would be a contradiction as he believes that he has no beliefs :hmm: that could very well be my fault though, not yours.

I think the author is a little confused. Moral absolutism is not the same as objective moral values. Moral absolutism would be very hard to justify without belief in the supernatural. That's why I take a moral relativist position. Nihilism is another position compatible with atheism.

I would be interested in whether or not you are a Descriptive moral relativist, or a Metaethical Moral Relativist as I think both have their flaws. Nihilism (as I mentioned before) is the most logically consistent world view if one accepts atheism to be true, so I would be very interested in you giving the reasons which you are a MR, but thank you for the time you put into your post!

thanks to everyone who replied, I enjoyed reading your responses, if by the time I wrote this I have 5 more replies they will have to wait until I get the time to respond.

[SSY]

You still did not answer why "running contrary to god" means. Please do so.

You said this

Because by its definition it is an unjustified killing. Now you could obviously say that it is only unjustified as define by our society, but (since your asking for my opinion) I think that making such a claim is a naive one. If murder is only bad because our society has decided it is bad than it ultimately it is not bad. My point is that whether it be in our conscience or subconscience we all know that killing someone unjustly is wrong.

This is where you make no sense. You make no mention of why such a claim is naive, the unjustness of a killing is decided entirley by the society, not anyone else. Saying murder is wrong, becuase it is unjust, is just moving the problem back one step, is there an objective way to decide if something is unjust? How do we know that killing someone is wrong? What evidence can you put forward to support this?  Again, I am guessing nothing. It is only bad becuase the society has decided it is bad.

Your point about objective truth still does not make sense, let me show you another way.

If I make a sandwhich, containing chicken, bacon, many nice things, is it delicious or not? If one person says yes, and another says no, is one of them wrong? According to you, objective truth exists, so there must be some sort of objective measure of the sandwhiches deliciousness. This is clearly wrong, different people have different tastes, without one being wrong and the other right. It is the same with morals, there is nothing intrinic about an act that makes it wrong, only society can decide if it is wrong ( like only a person can decide if a sandwhich is delicious ).

How do you know child rape is wrong? There has to be some reason for you beleiving this. You have to say what, intrinsic about raping children makes it a bad thing to do. You say knowing this mereley recognises the fact it is wrong, but you have not yet shown it is wrong, or why it is wrong.

Please, please answer my questions this time. You have not said why murder is wrong.

Since I sem to not understand your argument that I tried to paraphrase, could you please restate in the form of

1Premise
2Premise
.
.
nPremise
Deductions
Conclusions

Becuase after the comments you added to it, it no longer makes sense as an argument for objective morality existing.

[Phillysoul11]

This is where you make no sense. You make no mention of why such a claim is naive, the unjustness of a killing is decided entirley by the society, not anyone else. Saying murder is wrong, becuase it is unjust, is just moving the problem back one step, is there an objective way to decide if something is unjust? How do we know that killing someone is wrong? What evidence can you put forward to support this?  Again, I am guessing nothing. It is only bad becuase the society has decided it is bad.

Your point about objective truth still does not make sense, let me show you another way.

If I make a sandwhich, containing chicken, bacon, many nice things, is it delicious or not? If one person says yes, and another says no, is one of them wrong? According to you, objective truth exists, so there must be some sort of objective measure of the sandwhiches deliciousness. This is clearly wrong, different people have different tastes, without one being wrong and the other right. It is the same with morals, there is nothing intrinic about an act that makes it wrong, only society can decide if it is wrong ( like only a person can decide if a sandwhich is delicious ).

How do you know child rape is wrong? There has to be some reason for you beleiving this. You have to say what, intrinsic about raping children makes it a bad thing to do. You say knowing this mereley recognises the fact it is wrong, but you have not yet shown it is wrong, or why it is wrong.

Please, please answer my questions this time. You have not said why murder is wrong.

I have said why I think murder is wrong, but I will clarify, when I say that murder (or any other immoral act) is wrong, I state that it is wrong because it violates God's moral standard, now can I prove that it violates God's moral standard? no I cannot, I have repeatedly tried to make this clear. In regards to your analogy of the sandwich, their is nothing intrinsic about a sandwich which makes it  delicious, just as their is nothing in art, music, or dance which is inherently good, beautiful ect. There are many things (morality not being one of them) which are subjective (which I have noted); However, if I wanted to present a correct analogy than I would write it as such.

If I make a sandwich, containing chicken, bacon, many nice things, does it exist or not? If one person says yes, and another says no, is one of them wrong? According to me, objective truth exists, so they cannot both be true.  Different people have different tastes, but this does not change the fact that either it does, or does not exist. without one being wrong and the other right. It is the same with morals.



sure thing,
P1. Either Objective, or Subjective morality exists
P2. Subjective Morality is absurd as it leaves one morally crippled. (which has been the main point I have been trying to convey)

Deductions Subjective Morality does not correlate with reality
Conclusions Objective morality exists

thats a (overly) simplified argument, but I think it conveys what I'm trying to get across
notice all I was doing was arguing against SM (subjective morality)

[VanReal]

You are right, many theists believe objective morality exists and they each cling to their own thoughts of what those are. That fact only strengthens the argument that those morals are subjective because each group is defining them according to their belief system, tradition and culture.

I fail to see how a group defining their moral system according to their beliefs, makes their belief in objective morality subjective. You and I might think it is subjective, but that doesn't change the fact that it either is, or isn't objective. I'm not sure I'm quite following your logic, please clarify.   [/quote]

My logic is simple, or possibly simplistic depending on how you look at it.

Your point is that morals are objective rather than "created" or derived from society or personal beliefs.  You stated that many theists believe in that objective morality.  My point is that they are indeed derived from societies or personal beliefs rather than being objective.  

Theist Group A believes in objective morality and one of those morals is "thou shall not kill" any living thing.  Theist Group B believes in objective morality and "thou shall not kill" another human being is the objective morality.  Both can't be objective, therefore each group is actually taking a basic moral idea and adapting it subjectively to fit their ideals and or culture.

You use murder as an example but say that it is only murder when not justified.  Some would disagree stating that all killing is murder, even that of other creatures that we can not even see. (The Jain's for example cover their noses and mouths to ensure they don't accidentally breathe in and kill small insects, and walk only after slowly sweeping the path in front of them.)  So even this example of objective morality you have used is subjective depending on the culture, society, and/or individual.

You keep saying that objective morality exists whether or not people know what it is or whether or not there is agreement on it.  How is that logical?

I think the reason we are having so much repetition and similar arguments is that as a person I can't wrap my head around any idea or thought that doesn't have any relevant example that can not be explained away by others.  I can't think of any moral idea or act that would be obvious, absolute, or objective.  Maybe it's a lack of imagination.

[Phillysoul11]

My logic is simple, or possibly simplistic depending on how you look at it.

Your point is that morals are objective rather than "created" or derived from society or personal beliefs. You stated that many theists believe in that objective morality. My point is that they are indeed derived from societies or personal beliefs rather than being objective.

Theist Group A believes in objective morality and one of those morals is "thou shall not kill" any living thing. Theist Group B believes in objective morality and "thou shall not kill" another human being is the objective morality. Both can't be objective, therefore each group is actually taking a basic moral idea and adapting it subjectively to fit their ideals and or culture.

Both cannot be true; this does not mean that one cannot be objective.
if I am interpreting you correctly you are stating that beliefs cannot be objective if they cannot be proven. That if one cannot prove something than it must be subjective am I correct? I will assume I am correct but please notify me if I am not.

You use murder as an example but say that it is only murder when not justified. Some would disagree stating that all killing is murder, even that of other creatures that we can not even see. (The Jain's for example cover their noses and mouths to ensure they don't accidentally breathe in and kill small insects, and walk only after slowly sweeping the path in front of them.) So even this example of objective morality you have used is subjective depending on the culture, society, and/or individual.

You keep saying that objective morality exists whether or not people know what it is or whether or not there is agreement on it. How is that logical?

let us say their is a cosmic explosion that takes place only for 1/1000th of a second but is brighter than anything anyone has ever seen before. Now only 25 people claim to have seen this explosion and everyone else strongly disagrees, does this disagreement change the fact that it either happened or not? One cannot go around saying, "well it happened for you, but not for us". either it happened or it didn't. In the same way, either Morality is objective or not, if it is, than it is objective regardless of whether any person believes in it or not.
there goes another bad illustration, but I hope you understand why I am trying to convey.

I think the reason we are having so much repetition and similar arguments is that as a person I can't wrap my head around any idea or thought that doesn't have any relevant example that can not be explained away by others. I can't think of any moral idea or act that would be obvious, absolute, or objective. Maybe it's a lack of imagination.

I apologize for the lack of clarification, if you don't understand something I am probably at fault, just make sure to keep letting me know.

[AlP]

The first objective moral value relates to fairness. It is often straightforward to measure fairness objectively. For example, if I am distributing food, I can measure how much food I am giving to each person and I can adopt that as an objective moral value. I can generalize that concept of fairness and so long as I have a way of objectively measuring the cost or benefit to the people involved, it is an objective moral value. My choosing this moral value over another is subjective. But the measure of "good stuff" I give and in what proportion is not open to interpretation. It is an objective fact that I gave a certain amount to this person, and a certain amount to that one, etc.

You would be be giving equally, whether or not you would be giving "fairly" would be based on the whose standard of fairness you are referring to. If it is your standard, than it might be fair, but if society saw it as unfair then would it be fair?

You assume I would give equally. I never said I would do that but your assumption is correct in most instances. That is heartening. As I said I am a moral relativist. I consider it to be fair to give equally. Another person or society might consider it to be unfair. They are free to hold that opinion. I have no reason to believe there is a set of absolute moral values by which my fairness or otherwise can be judged. There are means by which my fairness can be measured objectively though. That's why I make the distinction between moral absolutism and objectively measured moral values. For example, you can objectively count how many pies I give to the homeless but you can't (IMHO) objectively measure how right I am for doing so without reference to a particular moral standpoint, which is hardly in the spirit of objectivity.

A moral value is objective if it is independent of the standpoint of an observer. And nobody need actually believe it. So far I am in agreement I think. However "something is right or wrong"! We don't all make moral decisions by determining whether they are "right" or "wrong". Many people use other measures. I personally think it's rather shallow to rely on "right" and "wrong". Why give food to the hungry because it's right? I prefer to give it because they're hungry. The "right" versus "wrong" issue shows a religious bias. An objective moral value need not be "right" or "wrong". I prefer those like "alive" versus "dead" or "fed" versus "hungry". I know many (most?) people do use the concepts of "right" and "wrong". I'm pointing out that they have no place in a general definition of objective moral value.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moral Morals or Morality as it is defined by MWD: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior if morality is relating principles of right and wrong in behavior then wouldn't moral values just be the value of an action relating to principles of right and wrong.

That definition of morality does not encompass my view. You'll find a more sophisticated description of ethical (or moral) value here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(ethics)

The moral value of something (like a thought, statement or action) is a measure of its goodness or importance.

but to measure goodness requires a standard, if the standard is that of societies, than it is not good, it is merely the societies opinion of good.

Please excuse my sloppy language. I should have said "the moral value of something ... is a measure of its desirability or importance". The desirability and importance may be absolute or relative depending on your viewpoint, though I think they are relative.

I fail to see how Morals Values and right/wrong are unrelated.

Sorry if I have caused confusion. They are very much related in the sense that many (or most) people use the concepts of "right" and "wrong" as the foundation of their moral framework. Even though I do not personally accept them as real concepts, I still have to take them into account because I live in a society of people who take them very seriously and morality is concerned with how our statements and actions affect other people and how they are judged by other people. I don't have to agree with the concepts to appreciate their importance to other people.

I'll try to explain why I don't think I need them with some examples:

I should feed the hungry because it is right to do so. (moral value is right / wrong)
I should not kill people because it is wrong to do so. (moral value is right / wrong)
I should fly a passenger aircraft into the a building because it is the right thing to do. (moral value is right / wrong)

Compare to:

I should feed the hungry because they are hungry. (moral value is hunger)
I should not kill people because they will become dead. (moral value is aliveness)
I should fly a passenger aircraft into a building because people will become dead. (moral value is aliveness)

The (IMHO) simplistic "right" / "wrong" conception of a moral value is a kind of abstraction on categorization. Before the second world war, if someone were to have invented a device that could have counted the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust, it would never report the result as "wrong". After the war it would have reported the result as being approximately 6 million. When you count deaths, the result is a whole number, not "right" or "wrong". "Right" and "wrong" are just ways of abstracting or categorizing moral values. If you are a moral relativist, it is possible, and I argue more helpful, to sidestep the whole issue of "right" versus "wrong" and go straight for the underlying empirical measure.

Getting back to the third statement in my examples above:

I should fly a passenger aircraft into the a building because it is the right thing to do.
I should fly a passenger aircraft into a building because people will become dead.

As a moral relativist, the first statement, to my mind, makes a twisted kind of sense. It is easy for a manipulative person to twist the meaning of a moral abstraction like "right" or "wrong" and incite people to take an action based on that (to my mind) twisted meaning. It is much more difficult to justify when expressed in terms of the objectively measurable consequence. That's one of the reasons I prefer not to use the concepts of "right" and "wrong". Another reason is because I think it is more intellectually honest.

I would be interested in whether or not you are a Descriptive moral relativist, or a Metaethical Moral Relativist

With regard to my understanding of other people's morality I suppose I could categorize myself as one of descriptive or metaethical. But that would be rather missing the point. I only accept "right" and "wrong" as aspects of other peoples' moral frameworks. My own moral views could be argued to be borderline nihilist. I say borderline because while I do not accept "right" and "wrong", there are still rules that I follow when considering the consequences of my actions with regard to other people. I call my views morality. For the more sophisticated definition of moral values I referenced earlier, I honestly don't think that's unreasonable.

You might wonder why I prefer morality to nihilisn. Love, hope and awe.

[Phillysoul11]

With regard to my understanding of other people's morality I suppose I could categorize myself as one of descriptive or metaethical. But that would be rather missing the point. I only accept "right" and "wrong" as aspects of other peoples' moral frameworks. My own moral views could be argued to be borderline nihilist. I say borderline because while I do not accept "right" and "wrong", there are still rules that I follow when considering the consequences of my actions with regard to other people. I call my views morality. For the more sophisticated definition of moral values I referenced earlier, I honestly don't think that's unreasonable.

You might wonder why I prefer morality to nihilisn. Love, hope and awe.

Interesting stuff, so if I am correctly assessing what you are saying, you believe that morality is simply the importance of either an abstract or physical object? Good/Bad, Right/Wrong hold no weight in your personal moral assessment of day to day happenings, but you realize that they do hold weight of those around you (in their moral framework).

 While I think your definition of morality is flawed, I do think (from what I can tell) you hold a pretty logically solid worldview.
I guess I would say that I should feed the hungry because they are hungry, and it is wrong for them to be hungry, but that is probably just a tweaking of the first option.
regardless, thank you for the time you put into your response.

[AlP]

Interesting stuff, so if I am correctly assessing what you are saying, you believe that morality is simply the importance of either an abstract or physical object? Good/Bad, Right/Wrong hold no weight in your personal moral assessment of day to day happenings, but you realize that they do hold weight of those around you (in their moral framework).

I think the value ethics described on the wikipedia page I referenced is too simplistic for real world application and I don't agree with all of it. It is the closest thing I've found to describing how I think morally. As a model, it's quite close. But in practice, I don't actually think in terms of the importance of abstract or physical objects. I think more in terms of the desirability of a consequence in terms that are ideally (but cannot always be) objective and empirical. I certainly don't do any mental arithmetic to calculate moral values when making a moral decision, as I might have implied with that reference.

[Recusant]

For one to have no faith (as defined by me) that person would not believe in anything, which would be a contradiction as he believes that he has no beliefs

You will excuse me if I do not accept you as the arbiter of definitions.
Faith is not "the belief in the existence of reality."  Look as you will, those words are not to be found in any definition of the word 'faith,' other than perhaps your personal definition.  You say that belief in the existence of reality is an idea, and ideas can only be trusted by an act of faith.  This is twisting and stretching the definition of faith to back up what seems to me to be an essentially solipsistic argument.  I know this veers into epistemology, but I'm curious; are you espousing solipsism here?
  Faith, as I understand it, is superfluous and irrelevant to the question of the existence of reality.  I know that reality exists, and can prove it to my own satisfaction. (Remember that I'm a barbarian who is only dabbling in philosophy.)  You will of course say that any standards of proof that I've used are unsatisfactory to you, the mentally agile theist philosopher. I think that your standard of proof is literally unrealistic. Reality can never be proved to your satisfaction, yet there are strong (I would say undeniable, but that's just me) indications that it does exist.    To assert that knowledge of reality is dependent on faith is once again, it seems to me, recourse to solipsism.  No doubt in your view I'm wrong; I await your explanation why.

Yes, but Science itself is based off of assumptions which cannot be objectively proven, science cannot account for many things, this being said it has a vitally important role to play in the understanding of the universe. Evidence is the compass in which we determine the ideology we hold.

Please give some examples of these assumptions.

 
 You are arguing that subjective morality leaves one morally crippled and is not in line with reality if I understand you correctly.  I think this idea is a bit contrived, since we see subjective morality in action all around us in the real world, and people acting on it don't feel themselves to be morally crippled.  But it would seem that according to what you have been saying, subjective morality doesn't even exist, since if it's not congruent with objective morality, it's necessarily other than morality.  Thus those who act based on what they believe to be morality, are not really acting in a moral way at all, if it is not in line with objective morality.  This makes sense only if you believe in objective morality, of course.

If you were to say that my opinions on this subject imply that I'm a nihilist, you would not be the first to label me as such.  I think 'nihilist' is not entirely accurate, but I'm willing to accept being labeled a nihilist since it's close enough to my views, in the opinions of moral absolutists that I have known, that I don't mind it.