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The only objective morality is the law of the jungle. Life wants to evolve. That means young and old animals are hunted down, diseases kill billions of organisms, and our bodies evolved pleasure and pain receptors to try to maximize survival.
There are immortal organisms on our planet, that never die of old age. This means that life on earth has the possibility to be immortal. The question is if mortality is an adaptation, to allow for faster evolution. I think it is.
If we evolved to be mortal and at the same time to feel pain as we die, you can rest assured that nature doesn't give a flip about the pleasure and pain you feel. You, as an individual, don't matter. All that matters is life itself, which can take many competing forms.
And hey, if life ended, and it will someday, then the universe won't even notice because the universe is not sensate.
There is no objective meaning. Meaning is only subjective.
You can zoom out your scope to include people in your family, or your community, or your country, or the world. Each time your morality becomes a bit more expansive, but also narrower in what is prescribes. The fact that as scope broadens, the claims diminish should tell you morality is subjective.
well, we (Homo-[whatever]) are evidence that is not case. We can choose not to just follow the "law of the jungle". Or at least we are evidence that if that is the objective morality, we can lessen suffering to the induvial involved if we so choose.
We are learning how to "evolve" without death. Maybe death is an illusion. Like a skin cells dies but you don't. In fact, you are changeless and timeless to that cell.
Is 'objective' relevant? Objective truths are something that is true whether we believe it or not, or whether we exist or not. Objective morality is just something religious people use to beg their god into question, as if objective truths can only come from a god (by definition they can not, as an objective truth must be true whether a god exists or not).
One can argue whether morality is objective or not, but this does not tell us what morality is, why we are sometimes moral beings who do immoral things, or how we can be more moral as a society.
I think that the way that morality gets "set up" is objective. Take for example the Ten Commandments or the Buddhist Five Precepts. They're quite objective.
But then man steps in and starts making decisions about the seemingly objective standards. In Buddhism, I have chatted with people who believe that the individual decides which (or all) of the Five Precepts he is going to follow. Or, how will they interpret some of the precepts. For example, in regard to the precept of "Abstain from sexual misconduct"...that isn't as hard a definition as it may first seem. What is sexual misconduct? It's debatable (except for monks).
Or we have people who think about a situation they get into, and simply decide to break a Commandment or Precept. Lots of obvious examples there, but look at the catholic lay reaction to the use of birth control...it ranges from following it to thinking it's a joke.
And so, even something that may start out as seeming objective, very quickly becomes subjective. Which is fine (at least to me).
The ten commandments are objective in that each commandment is an objective statement. The moral value of each commandment is not objective as far as I can see - someone has to decide on the moral value of it, or at least come up with an argument for the moral value of it.
Take "Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day." I think a lot of today's society would not think that objective statement has any moral value whatsoever.
So I would say:
-"Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day" is an objective statement. But by itself it has no morality.
-"It is morally good to remember to keep holy the Sabbath day" is subjective moral statement that a lot of people would disagree with.
Morality is not objective, and cannot be objective. For something to be objective, it must be true or false, right or wrong, unequivocally. No emotions, no context, no mitigating circumstances. 2 + 2 = 4 regardless of where I am or what I'm doing.
A hungry child who steals bread to eat -- is that right or wrong? To let that child die of hunger to uphold the law prohibiting stealing -- is that right or wrong? Even subtle changes on context changes morality, so it cannot be objective.
Morality is wholly subjective, and a creation of the need for order and boundaries as people began to operate cooperatively. It's a nice term to wrap around the concept of agreed-upon rules of engagement for a community or civilization. They need not be universal unless one assumes the community in question is also universal.
In a world where someone is alone forever and always, morality ceases to have meaning or purpose. The primitive lone homo sapiens hunting and gathering for survival had no concept of or need for morality.
Morality is not objective, and cannot be objective. For something to be objective, it must be true or false, right or wrong, unequivocally. No emotions, no context, no mitigating circumstances. 2 + 2 = 4 regardless of where I am or what I'm doing.
A hungry child who steals bread to eat -- is that right or wrong? To let that child die of hunger to uphold the law prohibiting stealing -- is that right or wrong? Even subtle changes on context changes morality, so it cannot be objective.
Morality is wholly subjective, and a creation of the need for order and boundaries as people began to operate cooperatively. It's a nice term to wrap around the concept of agreed-upon rules of engagement for a community or civilization. They need not be universal unless one assumes the community in question is also universal.
In a world where someone is alone forever and always, morality ceases to have meaning or purpose. The primitive lone homo sapiens hunting and gathering for survival had no concept of or need for morality.
Excellent post.
And I have never quite understood the belief that some people seem to have that everything should always be objective.
And I have never quite understood the belief that some people seem to have that everything should always be objective.
I think the quest for objective morality is in part due to an individual's weakness of will.
Someone might claim that something should be so because of objective morality, when really they want it to be so because of a personal preference.
Clothing preferences with objective morality is an easier argument to make than to say, "because that's how I want it," even though the latter is the truth. Many people have weak or non-confrontational personalities and struggle to assert their preferences, so they try to justify their preferences as objective.
I think the quest for objective morality is in part due to an individual's weakness of will.
Someone might claim that something should be so because of objective morality, when really they want it to be so because of a personal preference.
Clothing preferences with objective morality is an easier argument to make than to say, "because that's how I want it," even though the latter is the truth. Many people have weak or non-confrontational personalities and struggle to assert their preferences, so they try to justify their preferences as objective.
I see that (bolded) among western Buddhists a lot. Particularly in regard to the Five Precepts which they like to fudge in all sorts of ways because they want to drink or do drugs.
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