Who here believes in an objective and/or metaphysical morality?

PRE- puberty.

Homosexual rape is also objectively immoral.

But, even post puberty for the young girl, you would rape a young child, force her to become pregnant and bear you children against her will? Are you pro-life or pro-choice?

 

Enumerate the morals that you feel are universal, then.

 

We're talking about the survival of the entire human species here. And forcible rape is not necessary in a situation like this. If the last old man dies childless, this kid will live out the rest of her sorry life totally alone. If she chances to have a boy, when he grows up they might be able to produce more children and perpetuate humankind.

 

Murder is by definition killing against the law, many societies except and encourage killing that would not be acceptable to me or others. In the US the death penalty is allowed in the UK that would be murder.

 

Yes, murder is killing against the law - meaning against peoples interest. No society wants people running around killing people for whatever reason. State sponsored killing as a punishment for crime is different.

 

No state sponsored killing for a crime is by definition murder in the UK, there is no universal definition of murder.

 

The UK does not have the death penalty, but they have a military which does kill people (state sponsored killing).

Murder is the wanton killing of people, its one person killing his neighbor because the neighbor was too loud, its people operating without any boundaries (law). The exact words each society uses to define murder are irrelevant, they all mean and want the same thing - an orderly society in which people are safe and secure to be productive.

 

Unfortunately for the person who does it, it probably does, but instead of moral vs immoral, their decision is more a choice between acceptable vs unacceptable. It's a different balance of risk vs reward.

If we want a scale we can all work with that isn't left up to individuals to decide utterly what is right/wrong, moral/immoral, acceptable/unacceptable, we're going to have to acknowledge the factors that lean toward each side, and the many factors that have say on each event. Meaning, something is more or less beneficial to either an individual or a tribe or society in general. Do the actions of one person cause harm to them or others, or does it prevent it? Is an action leading toward creation or destruction? What are individual rights in this particular scenario, and how do they apply?

There are multiple layers and nuance. This is why I don't support an 'objective morality'.

 

Murder is defined by the state, it is subjective, what is murder in one society is not in another. There are simply no universal objective morals. I expect you agree with me that throwing a homosexual off a roof to their death is morally wrong, however we know that some groups do not consider this true.

 

No. You're looking for rules and regs, and that's not what morality is.

 

So as long as society via the State decides to kill somebody....you're cool with it?

 

So, the next question then, is what is morality? It's not just knowing the difference between right and wrong?

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Doing the right thing in the face of temptation.

Surely you don't imagine such knowledge is imparted by rules and regs.

 

Aside from the first part, I think we may be mixing terms. Personally, I distinguish between moral absolutism and moral objectivism. If things like benefit, harm, destruction and individual rights apply, I'd consider that consideration to have objective elements. In other words, if "is it okay to mow down a bunch of kids with an assault rifle just for fun" involves any other consideration than the personal tastes of the shooter, there are non-subjective considerations.

 

Just to be clear, does that mean doing wrong things are only a result of giving in to temptations? What if your only temptation was to do good in the first place?

I go by a system of ethics myself. As such, those are rules and regulationss I impose on myself, in a manner of speaking, and those are a result of guidelines set up by some mix of nature, nurture, societal norms and standard customs, alongside other rules and regulations imposed by a legal system.

Even the people that are supposedly following 'God's word', are following a type of rules and regulations. Moses got the tablets containing the admonition against killing right before being given the go ahead to start exterminating/subjugating whole tribes. If he was just doing as he was told, then that's rules and regulations. If his only desire was to please the lord, he gave in to temptation and murdered countless people, and only because God told him to do it was it moral in any way, according to this belief system.

 

Now you are talking. And you are damn right. We have a right to seduce the young lady under discussion, but it is Objectively Immoral to overpower her and force her to participate in another's scheme of survival.

Excellent point, right on the money and very well stated. I doff my "Make American Great Again!" hat to you in respect, sir!

 

This has elements of Sam Harris on it.

In your example, that they were taking lives, solely for amusement, clearly slides right over to the wrong or immoral sides because of those two particulars.

Take those particulars away, and replace them with child soldiers defending their home territory from other child soldier invaders, for the purpose of defending that home and the people they care for, dedicated even though not necessarily willing, and it's a streak straight toward the right or moral side of the scale.

Breaking it down to the motivations of each individual person, which would be a necessity in a scenario like this because no two of those kids is thinking the same thing, has the same motivations or temptations, or might be acting as a team player or on their own. So now it does become a particular element being regarded as right or wrong; not that they're killing, but why and to what ends. So, if this is the case, we can't stop at saying it is wrong to kill as a blanket term, when what we need to consider is when is it right or wrong to kill.

 

Some elements of Harris, some of Hilary Putnam, Philippa Foot, Mills, even Buddha and Epicurus. I think Harris has done a pretty good job of bringing some of these arguments to a more public audience.

I think the basic observation is that even acknowledging the existence of individual rights and the possibility of a rational consideration of harm introduces objective considerations. But that doesn't necessarily mean that moral objectivists/realists need to commit themselves to moral absolutism. You are quite right to point out that the situation needs to be considered and there could still be relativistic considerations.

The example I always use is this: think of time, in the physical sense. Time is not absolute, since time dilation is has been scientifically established. Time passes more slowly for someone traveling at high speeds compared to someone traveling at a lower speed, or for someone distant from a massive object versus someone close to a massive object. An astronaut who leaves this earth and zips around the universe and 99% the speed of light would return to find that more time had passed here than had passed for him on his journey. So time is relative, not absolute. But time is also objective. It doesn't care about my personal tastes or preferences -- it is not subjective. If you are being tortured and I'm having a threesome with Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johannson, you will feel that time is ticking by more slowly, while I would feel like there not enough hours in the day, but our watches would still tick at the same pace. Time wouldn't care about how much we are enjoying those ticks. So things can be both objective and relative.

 

Either it's absolute or it is not.

You have claimed it is absolute--so prove it.

 

Why? Because you feel icky when you think about it?

 

Time itself as a concept, isn't good or bad, or fast or slow. It's our experience of it or facets of it that we decide are either positive or negative. Is it reasonable then to say that concepts may be completely neutral, but our judgments of them are strictly relative?

 

Sure, concepts and even natural events are often neutral. It is only when we are talking about the actions of a moral agent that I would start calling something morally good or bad. If a meteorite hits my house, the meteorite has no moral value designation. The meteorite hasn't done anything wrong. If my neighbor burns my house down, that is a different story.

 

Agreed.

 

Read a lot of mental (*)(*)(*)(*)ery here, and mental gymnastics.

Is harm to another human being subjective? Or is it an objective fact? If it is an objective fact, then immorality is an objective fact. Immorality is any act, done intentionally to hurt another human being. That is the only means test worth consideration. It also seems that most immoral acts bring some sort of gratification to the one committing the immoral act, and in fact, drives that immoral action.

I know people want to have their own morals, tweaked so they can do what they want to, to what gratifies their little self images. But if your actions intentionally harm another human being, you are just an immoral selfish little (*)(*)(*)(*), who wants to squirm out of what your actions did, by claiming immorality is subjective. LOL.

People here want to play games with thought, when basic immorality or morality is just not that complex or complicated. Mental (*)(*)(*)(*)ery is a good term to hang on this activity. Humans have always played such games. Immorality creates human suffering or death intentionally. How hard is that to understand, and its hardly subjective. Every human being on earth knows what suffering is, it is a commonality that we all share. And since all suffer, suffering is an objective thing. As is the immorality that causes it.

So if you actions create human suffering, intentionally, you are an immoral bastard. No matter how you might try to escape that fact.

 

It's objective.

That is a subjective judgement.