Not sure why this got removed from 196lemmy…blahaj.zone but it would be real nice if moderation on Lemmy gave you some sort of notification of what you did wrong. Like an automatic DM or something
I like Matt Dillyhuntys approach to objective morality: he picks a subjective and kind of arbitrary foundation like wellbeing and objectively measures all actions against this foundation.
All of those things are group consensus though. As in there are plenty of examples when group consensus was the other way and those things (slavery, not allowing women to participate in democracy, extreme inequality) were accepted and practiced freely
But were they morally correct when they were accepted?
From the perspective of the majority in those societies, yes. Morality is not woven into our universe as a fundamental thing.
Math also isn’t woven into our universe as a thing. You can still decide whether or not something is objectively wrong or false (in math). The same goes for ethics.
This is no conclusion. You can call it objective. All moral is based on subjectiveness: Different people have different morals. Especially ideology can have different morals. For example Nazism has a morality that the (in the eyes of the ruling party) “weak” kin should be exterminated and the “strong” kin should spread more and survive.
This is a moral standpoint, and because objects like “good” and “bad” are based on moral, the political correctness of the moral is subjective.
In ideology there is no right and wrong if you have no premises and no moral yourself, so to speak, if you’re really objective.
Calling something objective is in truth just reactionistic.
But of course I think that in any debate there should be moral premises, like for example a democratic parlament should always have the premise: “for the people”.
In reality it’s quite different sadly.
Of course different people again have different understandings on what makes everyone in a democratic society happy, but for example right wing parties that praise capitalism or fascism there are definitely people that would gain from that.
Capitalism has the consequence that the rich get richer, and so to not devalue the currency, the poorer have to get poorer, even if they don’t get less money, but the amount of money that exists devalues the money of the poor. Inflation. And if political power can be bought through lobbying or corruption, there does not exist a democracy.
Fascism has the consequence that one group of people become absolute and govern the rest which is definitely not democratic.
This seems to assume reality is only that what can be measured by humans currently. But decisions have consequences even if we can not foresee them. To assume that there is no objective morality assumes that consequences were random or exist independent from causes.
I too highly suspect most moral relativists are full of shit and don’t actually believe in it. Ya’ll don’t believe in moral progress? A society of chronic rapists is not inherently bad outside of your societies or personal preferences? The overwhelming majority of moral decisions being relative doesn’t discount that at least one very important concept can be capable of superceding our preferences.
Saying that something isn’t objectively quantifiable (like morality)
isn’t a value judgement on it
Subjectively the morality of your example is abhorrent, but objectively you cannot, cannot , cannot! quantity it! Morality only exists in our minds! That doesn’t make it any less meaningful, but it makes it
not
objective
So you also say that mathematics is subjective?
An Aztec would not agree to any of that. They took slaves, they didn’t allow women to vote because they didn’t allow voting and women were second-class and they weren’t interested in a fair and equitable society, which is part of the reason their enemies helped the Spanish take them down.
So I’d say that your ‘objective truths’ didn’t apply to a major human civilization.
Here is an adjacent argument to the one you gave:
- Some people think the election was fixed
- Some people think the election was fair
Therefore, there is no “objective truth” to whether the election was fair or fixed.
Moral of the story, disagreement alone does not entail a lack of objective truth. But the post was not about moral disagreement, it was about moral progress.
Moral relativists have a hard time explaining why we should have moral progress. The moral relativist will argue that any action whatsoever will be a good action if there is a certain group consensus. So why should we fight for a more fair and equitable society if the society we have now is *exactly * as morally good as any other system we could enact? Even worse, if the majority of people in your situation believe that something unjust is the right thing to do, then protesting against them is morally wrong.
What does that have to do with my argument about the Aztecs? I don’t see the connection.
Because you seem to misunderstand what objective means, the other user is attempting to help you understand that with an unrelated example.
Objective means something is true. It does not mean consensus.
Yes, I know what objective means. What makes their morals untrue and yours true?
You could for example take an utilitarian approach and then the objectively better decision would be the decision that leads to less suffering in total.
Simply because it is practically impossible for us humans to calculate the “total of suffering”, doesn’t mean this total does not exist. It objectively does exist for every given decision. Perhaps there are exceptions where there is equal suffering for all decisions. But that still wouldn’t make it a subjective observation.
Arguably, the Aztec had an even bigger lack of information. For example by assuming that human sacrifices are a necessity. Or that women don’t suffer when they are treated as lesser.
Suffering is an objectively “real” thing in our universe. Unless you also want to debate whether pain or the human existence is real.
This seems like an axiom of ethics: less suffering is good. Because why would more suffering be good?
This seems like it leaves us with the option to either decide actively against what is good, or make decisions randomly. Random would be if you don’t consider whether a decision increases or decreases suffering / well-being. I am a total lay person for philosophy but this almost makes it seem like it’s a logical fallacy to assume ethics (on a base level) are subjective. We must assume something to make a decision. And your decision always leads to an increase or decrease in suffering. Therefore all decisions are on an objective scale of mortality…?
What is worse, blowing someone up on a battlefield or capturing them and sacrificing them later? I’d say the latter because the death is relatively quick and painless and included a soporific to calm the victim down. The latter was what the Aztecs did. Their wars were for capturing prisoners, not killing enemies. I don’t know… that sounds like their sacrifices are more moral than blowing someone’s legs off and letting them bleed out. I’d call the latter a lot more moral than the former. Because less suffering is good, right?
This is a very superficial view on the matter. You would have to consider all factors.
Which practices lead to more trauma? To more future victims? What are the long-term consequences for the future? Does one decision lead to more suffering in humans 3000 years in the future for some reason? Etc. Objectively, one way is the better one. We just don’t know which one it is.
