The world would look the same way it does now with or without objective morality. Objective morality is just the idea that moral truths exist independent of individual beliefs. E.g., that raping babies is an inherently immoral thing regardless of an individual’s feelings about it
Again though, I personally don’t believe this. I just won’t claim to know that there is no objective morality. No one can know that, the same way no one can know that there’s no god, or anything else unfalsifiable
The best argument I’ve heard for it, from a moral philosophy professor and personal friend of mine, is (paraphrasing) “I know for a fact that genocide is inherently wrong, and I’m not open to debating that. It’s just true.”
What would it mean that it’s ‘inherently’ wrong, though? Where would the judgement come from? And if it does come from somewhere (eg evolutionary psychology, a god), doesn’t that make it just the subjective morality of that thing?
The way it was explained to me was as analogous to maths. Idk much mathematical theory, but there are supposedly mathematical truths inherent to the universe, and this argument for morality is similar- that it doesn’t come from somewhere, it just is. I don’t think ‘judgement’ has anything to do with it, bc that would be subjective like you said
Maths is objective, yes. But maths is an ‘is’, while morality is an ‘ought’. And you can’t get an ought from an is without subjective values. And while maths is objective, any individual’s understanding of it may be inaccurate.
What would that actually mean though, for an act to be ‘intrinsically good’? I understood a good act as meaning an act that is virtuous to do, but then surely what is virtuous is determined by personal values.
There are three main camps of ethics:
virtue ethics, which I think you’re describing,
consequentialism (which is exclusively about the outcome of actions),
and deontology, which are the moral objectivists.
Deontologists argue that virtues and outcomes don’t matter- that there are universal underlying rules determining what is good or bad.
I believe the answer to ‘what that would actually mean’ is something along the lines of “it just is”
If saying something is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ doesn’t in any way relate to what people should do, then it’s about as meaningful as saying an action is ‘zonk’ or ‘crinkey’
The world would look the same way it does now with or without objective morality. Objective morality is just the idea that moral truths exist independent of individual beliefs. E.g., that raping babies is an inherently immoral thing regardless of an individual’s feelings about it
Again though, I personally don’t believe this. I just won’t claim to know that there is no objective morality. No one can know that, the same way no one can know that there’s no god, or anything else unfalsifiable
The best argument I’ve heard for it, from a moral philosophy professor and personal friend of mine, is (paraphrasing) “I know for a fact that genocide is inherently wrong, and I’m not open to debating that. It’s just true.”
What would it mean that it’s ‘inherently’ wrong, though? Where would the judgement come from? And if it does come from somewhere (eg evolutionary psychology, a god), doesn’t that make it just the subjective morality of that thing?
The way it was explained to me was as analogous to maths. Idk much mathematical theory, but there are supposedly mathematical truths inherent to the universe, and this argument for morality is similar- that it doesn’t come from somewhere, it just is. I don’t think ‘judgement’ has anything to do with it, bc that would be subjective like you said
Maths is objective, yes. But maths is an ‘is’, while morality is an ‘ought’. And you can’t get an ought from an is without subjective values. And while maths is objective, any individual’s understanding of it may be inaccurate.
Morality is an ‘is’ if you frame it as good vs evil like the context of this post
What would that actually mean though, for an act to be ‘intrinsically good’? I understood a good act as meaning an act that is virtuous to do, but then surely what is virtuous is determined by personal values.
There are three main camps of ethics:
virtue ethics, which I think you’re describing,
consequentialism (which is exclusively about the outcome of actions),
and deontology, which are the moral objectivists.
Deontologists argue that virtues and outcomes don’t matter- that there are universal underlying rules determining what is good or bad.
I believe the answer to ‘what that would actually mean’ is something along the lines of “it just is”
If saying something is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ doesn’t in any way relate to what people should do, then it’s about as meaningful as saying an action is ‘zonk’ or ‘crinkey’
Good point