Subjectivism

[Inevitable Droid]

Since proper and improper can mean what ever the reader wants, that means there's no limit on what can be proper or improper. This is also true of the absence of morality.  Thus there is no difference between morality, and no morality.

No.  Here are propositions A, B, C, D, and E, all of which can logically be made if we assume my definition of morality, which is, "the criteria by which the individual or collective judges a behavior as proper or improper for sapients to engage in."

A) If morality doesn't exist at all, then proper and improper are null sets.

B) If morality exists, then proper and improper aren't null sets.

C) If objective morality exists, then proper and improper aren't null sets and their contents include propositions that don't rely for their condition of being true on opinion, commitment, or imagination.

D) If subjective morality exists, then proper and improper aren't null sets and their contents include propositions that in fact do rely for their condition of being true on opinion, commitment, or imagination.

E) If morality exists but its attributes are completely unknown at this time, then proper and improper aren't null sets and their contents cannot in any way be predicted at this time, except that they aren't null.

All five of the above propositions are consistent with my definition.  With respect to your claim, it is falsified by the fact that proposition A and proposition E are utterly distinct.

[dloubet]

Are you insisting that all behaviors are either proper or improper?

If you aren't, then it's possible that (B) If morality exists, then proper and improper aren't null sets. is false. It could be that morality exists, but no behaviors are considered proper or improper.

[Inevitable Droid]

Are you insisting that all behaviors are either proper or improper?

No.

If you aren't, then it's possible that (B) If morality exists, then proper and improper aren't null sets. is false. It could be that morality exists, but no behaviors are considered proper or improper.

How could morality exist if no behaviors at all are either proper are improper?  The utter absence of propriety or impropriety would be the absence of morality, by any definition I've ever heard, and certainly by mine.

All that's required for proper and improper to avoid being null sets would be for one behavior to be proper, and one improper.

[dloubet]

How could morality exist if no behaviors at all are either proper are improper?

Easy, if you can justify "E) If morality exists but its attributes are completely unknown at this time, then proper and improper aren't null sets and their contents cannot in any way be predicted at this time, except that they aren't null. then I can justify claiming that there may be unknown behaviors that would be considered proper or improper thus justifying the existence of morality, but at the same time there are no current behaviors judged as proper or improper so the sets are null.

[Inevitable Droid]

Easy, if you can justify "E) If morality exists but its attributes are completely unknown at this time, then proper and improper aren't null sets and their contents cannot in any way be predicted at this time, except that they aren't null. then I can justify claiming that there may be unknown behaviors that would be considered proper or improper thus justifying the existence of morality, but at the same time there are no current behaviors judged as proper or improper so the sets are null.

Out of curiosity, what's the point of this exercise?  If I were to admit that you had me stumped, what would that demonstrate, other than a failure of my own capacity for logical thought?

As it turns out, the above brain teaser is resolved by recourse to the definition of morality originally posed, namely, "the criteria by which the individual or collective judges a behavior as proper or improper for sapients to engage in."

Per the above definition, if morality exists, then criteria exist by which the individual or collective judges a behavior proper or improper.  If such criteria exist, then judging by those criteria can occur.  If judging by those criteria can occur, then the judgments that would be logically necessary are available to be rendered, and those judgments are the ones in question, namely, propriety or impropriety.
 
Now, given the above, we can query said criteria, as to whether they are known or unknown.  If they are known, we can employ them.  If they are unknown, then we must either (1) discover them; (2) create new ones; or (3) conclude that no such criteria exist or can exist, and thus conclude that morality doesn't exist and can't exist.  If we reject option 3, that leaves us with attempting discovery, or attempting creation.  It may be plausible* that we could fail to discover the elusive criteria, but it isn't plausible that we would fail to create new ones, given a serious attempt, unless our creative capacities are so severely limited that we are incapable of creating any mental objects at all.  Anyone capable of posting on a message board is capable of creating mental objects.  Being one member of that class of people, I exert my brain, and start brainstorming.  The first mental object that pops into my head is the one you had previously proposed, namely, "behaviors that allow people to live together in peace and harmony."  So I run with that.  I create a definition for proper, that being, "(of behavior) the quality of allowing people to live together in peace and harmony"; and, for improper, "(of behavior) lacking the quality of allowing people to live together in peace and harmony."

At this point, I am faced with deciding whether to commit to my definitions or not.  If I choose not to commit, then I must go back to the drawing board, and either discover the criteria for judging, or else create new criteria, and if I still choose to create, then I resume brainstorming.  But if, instead, I decide to commit to my definitions, then I will have my own private definitions, subjective ones, since at this point they are mine and only mine, and they are mine only because I committed to them.   I could theoretically have committed to other ones, but I committed to these.

Now I am faced with whether to be satisfied with my accomplishment, and thus be satisfied with definitions that are strictly private, or whether, instead, I shall attempt to convince others to commit to my definitions, establishing a consensus, whereby, at least for those committing, the definitions shall be available for use in communication, and in fact will be taken for granted; I.e., assumed.  I had previously invited you to attempt this very exercise, and I invite you again.

* The only way we might fail to discover criteria is if we insisted the criteria had to be absolutely universal, and we would only insist that if we insisted on objective morality, and, in turn, insisted that objective criteria would be universally held by all sane humans in all time periods, as I would insist.  Subjective morality doesn't require universality.

[dloubet]

Out of curiosity, what's the point of this exercise?

To show your definition of morality is not only not congruent with the consensus, but devoid of meaning.

Since you refuse to offer any specifics as to the meaning of proper and improper, your current definition of morality is "Anything goes."

This is pretty much everyone else's definition of no morality at all.

Mine at least provides a handle on the meaning and purpose of the word.

[Inevitable Droid]

Out of curiosity, what's the point of this exercise?

To show your definition of morality is not only not congruent with the consensus, but devoid of meaning.

Have you looked up morality in a dictionary?  You'll find my definition is very much in line with how dictionaries define the word.  For example, my Random House Webster's College Dictionary defines morality as, "(1) conformity to the rules of right conduct; (2) moral quality or character; (3) virtue in sexual matters; chastity; (4) a doctrine or system of morals; (5) moral instruction; a moral lesson, precept, discourse, or utterance; (6) MORALITY PLAY."

Definition (1) is agnostic as to what the rules of right conduct are.  Definition (2) depends on the definition of moral, which I'll come back to.  Definition (3) is the only definition that says anything really specific.  Shall we accept chastity as a moral precept?  I suppose we could.  It never occurred to me to do so.  Definition (4) is agnostic as to which doctrine or system of morals is being referenced.  Definition (5) is agnostic as to which lessons, precepts, discourses, or utterances fit the category.  Definition (6) is specific to Christianity and thus is surely outside our discussion, since surely we are assuming atheism.

My dictionary defines the adjective moral as, "(1) of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical; (2) conforming to accepted or established principles of right conduct; virtuous; upright; (3) expressing or conveying truths or counsel as to right conduct; (4) based on fundamental principles of right conduct rather than on law, custom, etc.; (5) capable of recognizing and conforming to the rules of right conduct; (6) virtuous in sexual matters; chaste; (7) of, pertaining to, or acting on the mind, feelings, will, or character; ( based on strong probability; virtual."

Definition (1) is agnostic as to what the principles of right conduct are.  Definition (2) leaves us to determine for ourselves what the accepted or established principles of right conduct, if any, are, just as my definition does.  Definition (3) is agnostic as to what right conduct is.  Definition (4) leaves us to determine what the fundamental principles of right conduct, if any, are, just as my definition does.  Definition (5) is agnostic as to what right conduct is.  Definition (6) is the only definition that says anything really specific.  Shall we accept chastity as a moral precept?  I suppose we could.  It never occurred to me to do so.  Definition (7) addresses a meaning of the word moral that doesn't fit our discussion, but in any case, it offers no opinion as to how the mind, feelings, will, or character should be acted upon.  Definition ( addresses a meaning of the word moral that doesn't fit our discussion, being pertinent to a discussion of epistemology rather than ethics.

Your idea of defining morality in such a way that our definition would inherently constrain our behavior in specific, concrete, pre-determined, falsifiable ways, is the underlying idea of the branch of philosophy known as ethics, notorious for the inability of its many alleged experts to come to any consensus, despite millennia of debate going back at least to the ancient Greeks.

At this point, I will take up my dictionary's definitions for the adjective right, so as to offer a complete response to your contention.

My dictionary defines the adjective right as, "(1) in accordance with what is good, proper, or just; (2) in conformity with fact or reason, as in, the right answer; (3) correct in judgment, opinion, or action; (4) appropriate, suitable; (5) most desirable; (6) of, pertaining to, or located on or near the side of a person or thing that is turned toward the east when the subject is facing north; (7) sound; sane; ( in good health or spirits; (9) principle, front, or upper; (10) having conservative or reactionary views in politics; (11) socially desirable or influential, as said of people; (12) straight, as said of a drawn line; (13) having an axis perpendicular to the base; (14) in mathematics, pertaining to an element of a set that has a given property when placed on the right of an element or set of elements of a given set; (15) genuine, authentic."

Definition (1) is agnostic as to what constitutes the good, proper, or just.  Notice the presence of my own suggested adjective, proper.  Definition (2) pertains to epistemology rather than ethics.  Definition (3) is agnostic as to what would constitute being correct.  Defintion (4) is agnostic as to what constitutes the appropriate or suitable, presumably leaving it to society to make a determination, and thus is friendly to subjectivism.  Definition (5) is subjectivist to the core.  Definition (6) is irrelevant to our discussion.  Definition (7) is agnostic as to what constitutes sanity, a concept that has evolved over the course of history.  Definition (, if used as a criterion for moral rightness, would be subjectivist to the core.  Definitions (9), (10), (11), (12), (13), and (14) are irrelevant to our discussion.  Definition (15) leaves us to determine what is genuine or authentic with regard to a given situation or its principle agents.  

As it happens, definitions (1), (7), and (15) address concerns that are often or at least sometimes taken up by ethicists as potential candidates for devising an allegedly objective system of ethics.  The absence of consensus among the alleged experts in said branch of philosophy would argue against the utility of this approach.  In other words, the alleged experts debate incessantly as to what is good, what is just, what is sane, or what is authentic.

I'm going to start a new thread around the concept of the sane competent adult as a paradigm that might provide a lynchpin for morality.  We'll see where that goes.  I invite you a third time to start a thread around your own proposed paradigm of a peaceful and harmonious society.

[Inevitable Droid]

The only universal moral sentiment I can discern is a distrust for the genuinely amoral.  When we who aren't amoral encounter someone we instinctlvely know to be without a conscience of any kind, we recoil, horrified, for we know that absent fear of detection, or absent fear of punishment or humiliation if detected, this individual would do absolutely anything, and thus would potentially be the enemy of all life.  So I say that this is the sole maxim of objective morality: Have a conscience.  What sort of conscience?  That is entirely up to you.  Just have one, please.  

All else is arbitrary.

[Inevitable Droid]

I found this excellent article on moral realism, which is, essentially, the doctrine that objective morality exists.  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, on Moral Reaslism: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/

After reading the above, I became clear on precisely why I'm a subjectivist.  Consider the basic building blocks of the sapient psyche: (1) sensory perception; (2) logic; (3) intuition; (4) emotion; (5) appetite.  Of these, which can yield knowledge, which can yield hypotheses, and which can yield neither?

I claim the following.  
1. Logic by itself can yield knowledge about mathematics or formal logic but cannot (by itself) yield knowledge about nature.  
2. Sensory perception plus logic can yield knowledge or hypotheses about nature, or hypotheses about mathematics; the latter being testable later by sustained application of logic alone; but cannot yield even hypotheses about formal logic, since sensory perception is irrelevant to that discipline, beyond the fact that we need eyes to read a treatise or ears to listen to a lecture.  
3. Intuition can yield hypotheses about mathematics, formal logic, or nature but cannot yield knowledge of any of those.  
4. Emotion, coupled with logic, can yield knowledge or hypotheses about one's own emotional apparatus, and hypotheses about the evolution of one's own species, but cannot yield knowledge about nature (beyond one's own emotional apparatus) or even hypotheses about mathematics or formal logic.  
5. Appetite, coupled with logic, can yield knowledge or hypotheses about one's own appetitive apparatus, and hypotheses about the evolution of one's own species, but cannot yield knowledge about nature (beyond one's own appetitive apparatus) or even hypotheses about mathematics or formal logic.  

Where would the principles of objective morality reside, then?  In nature, mathematics, or formal logic?  Not in mathematics, presumably, since goodness is presumably a quality, not a quantity.  In formal logic?  Only to the extent that formal logic itself, the act of engaging in it, might be deemed good, or that reliable accuracy might be deemed good - but it wouldn't be formal logic that renders that judgment, since formal logic can only yield conclusions regarding the reliable accuracy of logical constructions, as opposed to the conclusions one would draw after applying a reliable logical construction to a set of premises, those premises always deriving from outside formal logic itself.  In nature?  Well, if not in nature, then apparently nowhere, so we'd have to hypothesize that the propositions of objective morality are to be found in nature.

Beyond knowledge of my own emotional or appetitive apparatuses, knowledge of nature is available to me via one course, and one course alone, that of applying sensory perception plus logic.

Applying sensory perception plus logic to nature is science, or would be, once we add certain disciplines, which are really just rules about how to apply sensory perception plus logic to nature in order for one's conclusions to be most reliable.
 
Thus the propositions of objective morality would have to come from science.  How could this occur?  I don't see how this could occur.  I can't even tentatively grasp at a hypothesis as to how this could occur.  Science tells us what is.  Morality concerns what should be.  What is and what should be aren't identical by any means, from any perspective I've ever heard, except the best of all possible worlds theory, which claims that what is, is the best of all possible worlds, and thus must be deemed good.  But the best of all possible worlds theory derives from the premise of an omnipotent, omniscient, and all-loving God.  That premise is intellectual treason for the empiricist and in any case is useless to the atheist.  We're left with what is as sometimes intersecting with what should be but sometimes not, with the points of intersection and the points of non-intersection only discernible once we already have in place our propositions of morality, which are strictly propositions about what should be, not at all about what is.  I can't escape what seems self-evident to me, that science and morality are two utterly distinct disciplines, the former sometimes providing data to the latter, and the latter sometimes imposing constraints or agendas upon the former, but the two disciplines always separated by a bright line.

And so I can't escape the conclusion that objective morality is impossible.

[Inevitable Droid]

Part 1 -

Try this on for size:

It is absolutely and universally true that it is morally wrong to do what you believe is morally wrong.

Put another way:

Acting against your own moral code is absolutely and universally wrong.

Part 2 -

Try this on for size:

It is absolutely and universally true that it is morally wrong to believe nothing is morally wrong.

Put another way:

Having no moral code is absolutely and universally wrong.

[Inevitable Droid]

Part 1 -

Try this on for size:

It is absolutely and universally true that it is morally wrong to do what you believe is morally wrong.

Put another way:

Acting against your own moral code is absolutely and universally wrong.

I reject the above as I know of no universal source whence a normative demand to honor one's own moral code might spring.

However, I assert this, and firmly:

It is illogical to do what you believe (or have decided) is morally wrong.  Acting against your own moral code is illogical.  Either change or delete your moral code or do what it demands, if you want to be logical.  Being illogical is certainly an option available to you.

Part 2 -

Try this on for size:

It is absolutely and universally true that it is morally wrong to believe nothing is morally wrong.

Put another way:

Having no moral code is absolutely and universally wrong.

I reject the above as I know of no universal source whence a normative demand to have a moral code might spring.  Amoraliy and immorality do not intersect.  Because non-erroneous moral objectivity does not and cannot exist, and thus the only existent non-erroneous morality is subjective, it follows that an amoral creature cannot be immoral, since subjective morality would by definition be lacking, and an immoral creature cannot be amoral, since it could only be immoral from its own subjective perspective, which by definition would deny it the status of being amoral.

It can also be perfectly logical to believe nothing is morally wrong.  Having no moral code can be perfectly logical.  Logic as such makes no normative demands on behavior.  Logic stipulates what must be true, not what must be done.

[Inevitable Droid]

I posted what follows on another thread in response to questions from a theist.  I realized later that it was directly relevant to this thread.  So here it is.

Premise A1. Absolute causality implies determinism.
Premise A2. Determinism implies no real choice.
Premise A3. Real choice is necessary for there to be moral culpability.
Conclusion A. There is no moral culpability.

Premise B1. The existence of objective morality is necessary for there to be objective moral culpability.
Premise B2. Objective moral facts are necessary for objective morality to exist.
Premise B3. The only kinds of objective facts are empirical, mathematical, and logical.
Premise B4. Empirical, mathematical, and logical facts are not moral facts.
Conclusion B1. There are no objective moral facts.
Conclusion B2. Objective morality does not exist.
Conclusion B3. There is no objective moral culpability.

Premise C1. The existence of subjective morality is necessary for there to be subjective moral culpability.
Premise C2. My commitment is necessary for subjective morality to exist in my case.
Premise C3. I have withdrawn my commitment.
Conclusion C1. Subjective morality does not exist in my case.
Conclusion C2. There is no subjective moral culpability in my case.

Premise D1. Moral culpability must either be objective or subjective.
Premise D2. There is no objective moral culpability.
Premise D3. There is no subjective moral culpability in my case.
Conclusion D. There is no moral culpability in my case.