Subjectivism/Emotivism and "Objective Morality"

[Althusser]

I recently started taking this class on ethics. Basically the point of the class is to assault us intellectually into accepting metaphysical notions about "objective morality."

Part of it entails bashing cultural relativism, moral skepticism, and emotivism in a very intellectually dishonest way with false equivalences and by basically guilting you into accepting that there is an objective morality by implying that if you don't, you think the holocaust "wasn't wrong."

Now I know that mainstream subjectivism is really lacking in class analysis (the idea the ruling or propertied classes of a given society, no matter the mode of production, have ideological hegemony), but I'm very sympathetic to these types of ideas, especially in the face of the professor's absurdity.

I'd really appreciate your opinions on this?

[BIXX]

Well, I think that they are framing the whole thing wrong.

Ethics I see as being based in equality.

Morality I see as a code of conduct.

They seem to be seeing ethics as a "bigger morality".

[argeiphontes]

You might want to look into consequentialism and utilitarianism. Check out the book "Living High and Letting Die" by Peter Unger, most of it was online for free. (It has those funny thought experiments about pushing people in front of streetcars to save a herd of kindergarten kids and was an enjoyable read.)

Personally it's hard for me to reject Kantian ethics, but I think utilitarianism is the proper calculus for applying them. Watch out for Nozick's Utility Monster. I'd say its not real but now I think it's my cat ;)

edit: actually I take that back about Kant because I can't remember how I came to that conclusion. But it's nice to think that space aliens could only probe Uranus ;)

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Yeah, I fucking hate it when "cultural relativism" (also, what?) is critiqued without bothering to actually approach historical and material realities of culture.
Also, LOL at denunciations of the holocaust from Americans. It's like, yo, buddy, whose land are you on? I suspect your prof. is likely a practitioner of the sick caricature he claims to uphold - where, of course, his culture's (ongoing) genocide is "different".

[argeiphontes]

Mostly to play devil's advocate... Wouldn't a HM analysis just tell you why a culture has some ethical rules, and not actually justify that it's ethical. For example, in capitalist culture it's considered ethical to make a profit. Regardless of how that developed, you might be able to argue that it's not ethical. >:-)

[Marxaveli]

Objective morality = oxymoron. There is no such thing. ALL morality is abstract and therefore subjective. Class struggle, on the contrary, can be empirically observed and therefore is objective.

The Holocaust was wrong, but not for moral reasons, rather HUMANITARIAN reasons which are much more universal than morality.

Show this post to the entire class and save everyone a few unnecessary units, time and money.

[argeiphontes]

What's the difference? Don't all people have the right to not to be made to suffer and die without an extraordinarily good reason? I can't really think of any other ethical constraint that's so widely believed.

[Marxaveli]

The difference between what?

[argeiphontes]

Between your definitions of 'moral' and 'humanitarian'. What I'm trying to say is, isn't humanitarian a synonym for moral?

[Marxaveli]

No, they are completely different things.

Humanitarianism concerns itself with the human condition and its improvement, for the sake of itself and not in the context of any particular set of morals.

Morality is based on a set of abstract and subjective values or ideologies, and is basically gibberish since most of the time said values or ideas come from the ruling class (as Marx once stated: "the ruling ideas in any epoch have ever been the ideas of its ruling class", and bourgeois morality is the center of that). "its moral to wait for marriage to have sex" - this is morality, and it is, as you can see, completely subjective and meaningless in any discussion of the material realities in which we live.

I want socialism to prevail not because it is more "moral" than capitalism - I want socialism to prevail because it is in the objective interests of the working class for it to do so. Whether it is moral or not is completely a matter of perspective, and ultimately, meaningless. Morality is subjective, but class interests and class antagonisms in general are objective.

[argeiphontes]

I'm going to use 'moral' and 'ethical' as synonyms in my reply. I'm not sure there's any benefit to separating the terms unless it becomes necessary.



Morality is based on a set of abstract and subjective values or ideologies, and is basically gibberish

We don't know that yet in the context of this thread. It's been asserted, but nobody has provided any reasons why this would be true.



"its moral to wait for marriage to have sex" - this is morality


That's a specific rule from a group of people who Bible thump. I agree that they are wrong, in that I think that whether or not the two (or more I suppose) people are married has no relation to whether it's moral to have sex. They're just making a fallacious appeal to an authority.

But, nothing else really follows from that one rule being wrong, except that nobody should accept appeals to authority as justifying anything.



I want socialism to prevail not because it is more "moral" than capitalism - I want socialism to prevail because it is in the objective interests of the working class for it to do so.

But why would you want these objective interests of the working class to prevail, if it weren't for ethical reasons? (i.e. What would be a non-ethical reason why working class interests should prevail and not capitalist interests?) Self-interest is an OK answer, but personally I'd find that a little empty, especially if I'm asking other people to join me. Maybe they'd do better for themselves if they just stayed in school and became doctors and lawyers. edit: Also, we're not going to live forever, so that also means the system would apply to future generations.

[Althusser]

No, they are completely different things.

Humanitarianism concerns itself with the human condition and its improvement, for the sake of itself and not in the context of any particular set of morals.

Morality is based on a set of abstract and subjective values or ideologies, and is basically gibberish since most of the time said values or ideas come from the ruling class (as Marx once stated: "the ruling ideas in any epoch have ever been the ideas of its ruling class", and bourgeois morality is the center of that). "its moral to wait for marriage to have sex" - this is morality, and it is, as you can see, completely subjective and meaningless in any discussion of the material realities in which we live.

I want socialism to prevail not because it is more "moral" than capitalism - I want socialism to prevail because it is in the objective interests of the working class for it to do so. Whether it is moral or not is completely a matter of perspective, and ultimately, meaningless. Morality is subjective, but class interests and class antagonisms in general are objective.

Totally agree with the last paragraph, but I still see no real difference between moral and humanitarian reasons. The Nazi holocaust wasn't a threat to the existence of human beings as a whole. What do you mean by the improvement of the human condition? because it seems that any supposed improvement would also be in moral terms.

[Althusser]

Self-interest is an OK answer, but personally I'd find that a little empty, especially if I'm asking other people to join me. Maybe they'd do better for themselves if they just stayed in school and became doctors and lawyers. edit: Also, we're not going to live forever, so that also means the system would apply to future generations.

That's why Marx said in the beginning of Capital Vol. 1 that when the working class reads it, they will have difficulty understanding it because of a lack of education, lack of time, etc., and the bourgeois intelligentsia will have trouble understanding it because what it proposes is objectively against their class interests. Marx also said that the trouble workers have reading Capital are much more conquerable than that of the bourgeoisie.

I think petty-bourgeois students usually get interested in Marxism for ethical reasons. The real trouble is getting them to rid themselves of the remnants of bourgeois ideology as well as the liberal Marxist-humanist trash along with it. I think adhering to massline and talking about the "horrible" things that happen in capitalism is a good way to get people thinking about Marxism as a science. But getting people to grasp the objective exploitation in capitalist mode of production is key.

In my sociology class, the professor talked about commodity fetishisation and social alienation for an hour and a half and old us the class was on Marx. I thought it was a fucking useless class because it didn't even touch on the real meat of Marxist ideology which has to do with the universality of the labor process, the historical relations of production, and most importantly, the labor theory of value and the OBJECTIVE EXPLOITATION involved in the capitalist mode of production. He was on some liberal bullshit about how corporations don't care about us.

[argeiphontes]

Totally agree with the last paragraph

Then it looks like both of you are just disagreeing with a particular system of morality.

[argeiphontes]

OBJECTIVE EXPLOITATION

Sure, it is objective. But that doesn't explain why exploitation is ahem, wrong. Saying that it's wrong is an ethical statement. But if ethics is just a matter of personal opinion, then the ethics of the capitalist has the same weight as any other person's ethics.

edit: If Marxism is a science, then it still doesn't explain why people should take any action at all to do anything.

[Althusser]

Then it looks like both of you are just disagreeing with a particular system of morality.

What system of morality does his last paragraph adhere to?

I'm working class. I would benefit from socialist revolution. Therefore, I want a socialist revolution.

This is a crude description of how I feel because though it is partially true, I do feel that exploitation is wrong. Though I feel this way, the top description is the objective (divorced from morality) reason I want a socialist revolution. To get petty-bourgeois peeps on board with it, a humanist-ethical way might be necessary, but I don't think they can be a real asset to the revolution until they are proletarianized and would have a material basis for fighting against capitalism.


Sure, it is objective. But that doesn't explain why exploitation is ahem, wrong. Saying that it's wrong is an ethical statement. But if ethics is just a matter of personal opinion, then the ethics of the capitalist has the same weight as any other person's ethics.

The ethics of the capitalist DOES have the same weight as the proletariat's and any other person's ethics. Both weigh 0kg. Exploitation isn't wrong. Liberation isn't right. They are just expressions of the class struggle and are maintained and achieved respectively because of material interest. Sorry to be one of those cold soulless revolutionaries, but the alternative is at zuccotti park with a bongo drum, or teaching college level sociology courses.


If Marxism is a science, then it still doesn't explain why people should take any action at all to do anything.

If someone was about to start stabbing you, would you let that person have at it if you had no moral reasons to tell you that "stabbing is wrong?" No, you'd fight back because it was your in material interest to do so. The main problem with the capitalist system is that ideological hegemony belongs to the stabber (capitalist class), and fighting the ideology of the oppressor to let the victim know that it is right to rebel by any means necessary (use violence, kill your attacker), and not by the terms of the oppressor (give up your money, let yourself be stabbed, or light yourself on fire instead lol)... but this is a whole other discussion.

[argeiphontes]

What system of morality does his last paragraph adhere to?

Never mind, I reread the paragraph and it doesn't say anything about that. (I was talking about the appeal to authority Bible thumping.)



I'm working class. I would benefit from socialist revolution. Therefore, I want a socialist revolution.


Now we're talking ethics. That's a sound reason.



the objective (divorced from morality) reason I want a socialist revolution

...

The ethics of the capitalist DOES have the same weight as the proletariat and any other person's ethics. Both weigh 0kg.

Saying exploitation is objective isn't the same as saying there's an objective reason for revolution. Just because exploitation is going on, it doesn't follow that it should be ended unless it's also... wrong? Bees are exploited for honey, but nobody is agitating to free the bees.

If you want to revolt for your benefit, then isn't that a subjective reason? (I'm not saying you're not entitled to your subjective reasons.)

I'm sorry but I have to call it quits for tonight since I have to be up at a reasonable time tomorrow, but I'll look at this thread when I get a chance tomorrow. Besides I have the sneaking suspicion I'm going to start going in circles without some sleep ;)

[Althusser]

Saying exploitation is objective isn't the same as saying there's an objective reason for revolution. Just because exploitation is going on, it doesn't follow that it should be ended unless it's also... wrong? Bees are exploited for honey, but nobody is agitating to free the bees.

If you want to revolt for your benefit, then isn't that a subjective reason? (I'm not saying you're not entitled to your subjective reasons.)

I'm sorry but I have to call it quits for tonight since I have to be up at a reasonable time tomorrow, but I'll look at this thread when I get a chance tomorrow. Besides I have the sneaking suspicion I'm going to start going in circles without some sleep ;)

Good night man.

Anyway, as a dialectical materialist I think contradictions have a tendency to be resolved. There is an objective contradiction between socialized labor and the private appropriation of the fruit of that labor. This contradiction will be overcome by the proletariat expropriating the bourgeoisie and building socialism.

The ending of bee exploitation would only come from the bees emancipating themselves (lulzy hypothetical), rather than outsiders agitating for them while they are submissively exploited for their honey. To put this analogy in the realm of the class struggle, I want to dispel the petty-bourgeois conception that the workers emancipation will come from being agitated for from the outside on a moral basis by petty bourgeois liberals without any material basis.

It's about the oppressed realizing their oppression and ending it for their material interest, in the same way the bourgeoisie uses the state to manage our exploitation for their material interests. Morality plays no part. Once again I'll put forward the stabbing analogy. If someone was about to murder you, would your resistance stem from a moral aversion to murder, or a material interest in continuing to live? The same with the class struggle. Will the working class ultimately achieve socialism because of a moral aversion to exploitation, or because they are exploited and have a material interest in ending it? These morally based and Marxist humanist arguments will never extend past the realm of intellectuals and academia.

[ChrisK]

I recently started taking this class on ethics. Basically the point of the class is to assault us intellectually into accepting metaphysical notions about "objective morality."

Part of it entails bashing cultural relativism, moral skepticism, and emotivism in a very intellectually dishonest way with false equivalences and by basically guilting you into accepting that there is an objective morality by implying that if you don't, you think the holocaust "wasn't wrong."

Now I know that mainstream subjectivism is really lacking in class analysis (the idea the ruling or propertied classes of a given society, no matter the mode of production, have ideological hegemony), but I'm very sympathetic to these types of ideas, especially in the face of the professor's absurdity.

I'd really appreciate your opinions on this?

I would combine a modified version of emotivism (ethical propositions cannot be true or false and are simply non-sense. They do, however, show us something about the material conditions of the society they exist in) with historical materialism.

I would divide ethical rules into two types: rules that help society run smoothly and rules that maintain the status quo.

Rules that help society run smoothly are the kinds of rules that give rise to the notion of objective morality. "Thou shall not kill," is a rule that helps all societies run smoothly.

Rules that maintain the status quo are one's like, "Work hard for your (exploitative as all shit) wage,", "It is wrong to use someone's idea without compensating them," or (for an older example), "Peasants must listen to their lords."

There you get to show that ethics are not universal, but that they are based on the material conditions of society and deal with pesky universal goods.

[Marxaveli]

We don't know that yet in the context of this thread. It's been asserted, but nobody has provided any reasons why this would be true.

Moralism is always subjective, regardless of the context. For the simple fact that what one person may find moral, another will find amoral.


That's a specific rule from a group of people who Bible thump. I agree that they are wrong, in that I think that whether or not the two (or more I suppose) people are married has no relation to whether it's moral to have sex. They're just making a fallacious appeal to an authority.

But, nothing else really follows from that one rule being wrong, except that nobody should accept appeals to authority as justifying anything.

Your last sentence there nails it. Morality was developed as a tool to enforce class rulership and privilege to subjugate or deceive the lower classes into accepting their oppression. Although this has existed in all class systems, it is quite possibly more prevalent with capitalism and bourgeois morality. That is just one specific rule, but the logic behind can be applied to all morality, since morality is once again, always subjective. What is more, morality always has some sort of ideological agenda behind it from what I can see.


But why would you want these objective interests of the working class to prevail, if it weren't for ethical reasons? (i.e. What would be a non-ethical reason why working class interests should prevail and not capitalist interests?) Self-interest is an OK answer, but personally I'd find that a little empty, especially if I'm asking other people to join me. Maybe they'd do better for themselves if they just stayed in school and became doctors and lawyers. edit: Also, we're not going to live forever, so that also means the system would apply to future generations.

Well, part of that is indeed because I am of the working class, so it is in my interests for socialism to prevail. But beyond that, socialism is a system based on co-operation, a society of free associates that benefit from the fruits of their own labor without exploitation, and in general will be a more humane system than capitalism. Capitalism is a system where profit/accumulation of capital, and not human need, is the bottomline. This is getting into ethics now, but ethics and morality are also two different things. Ethics can be objective and universal (though only within the context of material conditions), unlike morality.

I know I sound like a cold revolutionary, but that doesn't mean I do not have a code of ethics or set of guidelines that help me distinguish between right and wrong. Marxism is scientific, and while I think there is a place for ethics within its framework, it is generally not a mode of analysis grounded in ethical foundations. We should be using Marxism as a way of understanding capitalism and its contradictions, and as a tool for building revolutionary socialism. But not necessarily because it is ethical to do so, but because humanity ultimately needs socialism. Capitalism, if allowed to continue as is unabated, will almost certainly result in catastrophe (the good ol' saying: socialism or barbarism), and the ruining of the planets environment as a whole. Eh, that is getting into ethics too I guess, but we already know why we need socialism - so we should be focusing on how to get there, and not why.

There is no place for morality in a Marxist framework. Morality deals with the subjective, while Marxism deals with the objective, material reality. Morality is something we will leave to our utopian socialist counterparts.

[argeiphontes]

This is probably the point where we agree to disagree. There's no bridging the gulf between subjective conceptions of ethics and, say, Kantianism, unless you're convinced by the arguments, which is, of course, subjective ;)


Moralism is always subjective, regardless of the context. For the simple fact that what one person may find moral, another will find amoral.

I just meant that in our discussion nobody had given reasons. What you just said is a reason, that conceptions of what's ethical in a particular situation vary between people. Somebody like me who foolishly wants to base ethics on firmer ground would just say that some people are mistaken or acting out of reasons that aren't based on ethics, but for example self-interest or whatever.



Ethics can be objective and universal (though only within the context of material conditions), unlike morality.


That's a good point and why I thought it might be valuable to separate ethics from "morality" which I think we can agree is just a particular expression of something that could be ethically based but is also likely to be based on self-interest.



I know I sound like a cold revolutionary


I wasn't making any claims to that, just wanting to base the discussion on clear definitions and so on. Eventually I wanted to come back to OP about systems of ethics, and maybe the bees can fly me there. I would maintain that there is an essential difference between the bees and me that makes it wrong to exploit me and not the bees. (Not to bring any concrete actions into the discussion, but I just want to add that I believe (some) animals have (some) rights but insects is really pushing it ;) )

[zoot_allures]

Part of it entails bashing cultural relativism, moral skepticism, and emotivism in a very intellectually dishonest way with false equivalences and by basically guilting you into accepting that there is an objective morality by implying that if you don't, you think the holocaust "wasn't wrong."
Seriously? Maybe you should consider dropping the class, if you can. That's an egregious misrepresentation of a whole host of theories that oppose moral objectivism. I wouldn't trust anything the lecturer says at this point. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

Are you sure didn't just misunderstand him? There are some meta-ethical views on which nothing is wrong (or right), e.g. moral error theory. It's absurd to claim that this is entailed by either emotivism or relativism, though.

The only comments my first ethics lecturer made about emotivism were something along the lines of: "it's absurd, nobody really believes it". I was at the time fairly strongly convinced of emotivism and I'm still tempted towards it. (To be fair, the focus of that class was practical ethics, not meta-ethics. Perhaps this is the case for your class too? Of course, that would still be no excuse for misrepresenting a whole bunch of major meta-ethical views.)

[cyu]

Observations:
1. Cultures have a great deal of variation around the world
2. Different cultures may judge different things as moral or immoral

Conclusions:
1. These cultures can't all be right about morality, or you'll have a bunch of logical paradoxes.
2. Judgments about morality are affected by cultural relativism and your subjective culture.

This is one of those great historical philosophical debates (maybe right up there with free will vs. determinism) - if there is no objective morality, how can anyone determine what is the "right" or "wrong" thing to do? People don't like to be left lost in a fog with no clear direction. Not only that, if we can't tell right from wrong, then can we even write laws? Can we even have government?

Among all the statements about what is moral and what is immoral, I would say there is a mixture of both subjective declarations (ones that can basically be ignored because they are irrelevant) and objective declarations that can be measured based on certain criteria. The main challenge is being able to tell the difference between the two types of declarations.

How would I measure objective morality? I would submit that "traditional" judgments about morality, while at times is the victim of random noise, tends to share with other cultures' moral codes in that they often end up being a measure of the level of cooperation in various behaviors. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation

This article is an introduction to how game theory and computer modeling are illuminating certain aspects of moral and political philosophy, particularly the role of individuals in groups, the "biology of selfishness and altruism", and how cooperation can be evolutionarily advantageous.

cooperation, and even altruism and morality, are prevalent, even in the absence of coercion, even though it seems that a properly self-regarding individual should reject all such social strictures and limitations. As early as 1890 the Russian naturalist Petr Kropotkin observed that the species that survived were where the individuals cooperated, that "mutual aid" (cooperation) was found at all levels of existence. By the 1960s biologists and zoologists were noting many instances in the real "jungle" where real animals – presumably unfettered by conscience and not corrupted by altruistic liberals – and even microbes (see microbial cooperation) were cooperating.

Robert Trivers had shown that reciprocal altruism is strongly favored by natural selection to lead to complex systems of altruistic behavior (supporting Kropotkin's argument that cooperation is as much a factor of evolution as competition), and Axelrod's dramatic results showed that in a very simple game the conditions for survival (be "nice", be provocable, promote the mutual interest) seem to be the essence of morality. While this does not yet amount to a science of morality, the game theoretic approach has clarified the conditions required for the evolution and persistence of cooperation, and shown how Darwinian natural selection can lead to complex behavior, including notions of morality, fairness, and justice. It is shown that the nature of self-interest is more profound than previously considered, and that behavior that seems altruistic may, in a broader view, be individually beneficial. Extensions of this work to morality and the social contract may yet resolve the old issue of individual interests versus group interests.

[Tim Cornelis]

Saying that the Holocaust wasn't wrong if you believe objective morality doesn't exist (which it doesn't) is like saying that you can't like french fries because good taste is not objective.

[zoot_allures]

Saying that the Holocaust wasn't wrong if you believe objective morality doesn't exist (which it doesn't) is like saying that you can't like french fries because good taste is not objective.
It depends on your account of the semantics of moral statements. For an emotivist, for example, moral statements are just expressions of emotion, so "the Holocaust was wrong" literally means something along the lines of "the Holocaust: boo!!" or "I strongly disapprove of the Holocaust" or whatever. On the other hand, for a moral error theorist, moral statements try to describe features of the mind-independent world. "The Holocaust was wrong" expresses much more than just an emotional distaste for the Holocaust: it attributes a property, wrongness, to an event, the Holocaust - and it is incorrect because the event in question does not in fact have this property.

[cyu]

for a moral error theorist, moral statements try to describe features of the mind-independent world. "The Holocaust was wrong" expresses much more than just an emotional distaste for the Holocaust: it attributes a property, wrongness, to an event, the Holocaust


Depending on how you define "moral" of course. Let's say I define "moral" as just another way of saying "cooperative" - while it's true you may dispute my definition, but regardless of whether you agree with the equivalence or not, you can measure the amount of cooperative behavior associated with any event.

In this case, I would say the behavior displayed during the Holocaust was not an example of cooperation (assuming cooperation means interactions in which all parties benefit). So if this event is the opposite of cooperation, and if I define morality to be cooperation, then this would be immoral. Of course, you can say that's just my subjective definition of morality, so I can't claim it's objectively immoral. Still, the claim that it's objectively non-cooperative behavior is easier to show.

[zoot_allures]

Depending on how you define "moral" of course. Let's say I define "moral" as just another way of saying "cooperative" - while it's true you may dispute my definition, but regardless of whether you agree with the equivalence or not, you can measure the amount of cooperative behavior associated with any event.

In this case, I would say the behavior displayed during the Holocaust was not an example of cooperation (assuming cooperation means interactions in which all parties benefit). So if this event is the opposite of cooperation, and if I define morality to be cooperation, then this would be immoral. Of course, you can say that's just my subjective definition of morality, so I can't claim it's objectively immoral. Still, the claim that it's objectively non-cooperative behavior is easier to show.
Sure, you can define words in nonstandard ways if you want. But then you're just changing the subject. (Well, it doesn't necessarily change the subject to say that moral behaviour just is cooperative behaviour. There need not be any subject-changing if the equivalence is taken as extensional, rather than intensional.)

In any case, two further problems with your view here:

- You define "cooperation" to mean "interactions in which all parties benefit". But benefit according to whom? Whether or not x benefits from y is not objective. It's a value judgement. Unless, of course, you have a technical definition of "benefit" in mind too.

- There are plenty of situations where it's arguable that it's simply not possible for all parties to benefit - e.g. the famous Trolley problem. Presumably you'd say that there's simply no moral action available in this case? Or for a more commonplace example: determining who gets access to scarce resources, such as kidney dialysis machines.

[cyu]

But benefit according to whom?


There could be many possible answers. The one I would tend to use is that benefit according to the subjective values of those involved. That is, if A, B, and C are involved, then they each think they are being helped. While this does involve subjective opinions, you can say that the fact that each person subjectively likes it is an objective measure.

On the other hand, some might say there's an objective definition of benefit - ie. one where a person might think he's being helped, but is in fact being objectively hurt. Issues of fraud come to mind. But then again, if the fraud is revealed, then the subjective opinion of the victim will change - such that his subjective opinion now agrees with the "objective" observation that he is being hurt.



There are plenty of situations where it's arguable that it's simply not possible for all parties to benefit... Presumably you'd say that there's simply no moral action available in this case?


Yes, sometimes there are simply no good solutions. Often, a cooperative solution is also the smartest solution. Just because the current participants can't think of a solution in which they all benefit, that doesn't mean a solution doesn't exist. If someone does think of a solution that benefits them all, then not only would the participants think it the most "moral" solution, but probably the "smartest" solution as well.


determining who gets access to scarce resources, such as kidney dialysis machines.

Make more dialysis machines ;) If the use of the machines that currently exist can help increase the production of more machines, then it tends to help improve the lives of everyone who needs these machines. Then again, if some people will die before the new machines come online, then you probably don't have the smartest solution =]

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I don't think it's so easy to draw a strong dichotomy between the objective and subjective. Perhaps "Subjective knowledge" and "Objective knowledge" both play a role in how we learn about the world? We learn about objects through our subjective experience.

There are different accounts as to what we're making moral or ethical judgements about. Do we make it about an action's consequences, a person, or a principle behind an action? Virtue ethicists, deontologists and utilitarians will have different responses to the proposal that there is no "objective" content in a moral judgement.

I also find the argument that moral systems are culturally relative to be unconvincing. That nobody has perfected moral knowledge yet doesn't mean that morality as such doesn't exist.

[argeiphontes]

Yes, sometimes there are simply no good solutions. Often, a cooperative solution is also the smartest solution. Just because the current participants can't think of a solution in which they all benefit, that doesn't mean a solution doesn't exist. If someone does think of a solution that benefits them all, then not only would the participants think it the most "moral" solution, but probably the "smartest" solution as well.

What about a situation where people agree that the best course of action is to cooperate to assign a detriment to some subset of the group? For example, everyone on John Galt's island agrees that they should institute capitalism, knowing that some of them will go bankrupt and starve. Or, in a lifeboat floating at sea, all of the sailors agree that they should draw straws to determine who will be eaten?

edit: Also, the cooperation definition (unless it was just an example) relies on solutions where all agree on a benefit to all. Once you require less than full cooperation (say, in a democracy), you could justify the holocaust based on saying that most people cooperated for the subjective benefit of being rid of minorities.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I also find the argument that moral systems are culturally relative to be unconvincing. That nobody has perfected moral knowledge yet doesn't mean that morality as such doesn't exist.What's "perfected moral knowledge"? There is a platonic morality to which all morality is a flawed attempt to achieve?

Morality is just codes of "proper" behavior and therefore are based in specific circumstances, and since the circumstances of our societies are drenched in class relations, I think class realities determine "morality" of a given society.

For example:

[No sex before marriage]That's a specific rule from a group of people who Bible thump. I agree that they are wrong, in that I think that whether or not the two (or more I suppose) people are married has no relation to whether it's moral to have sex. They're just making a fallacious appeal to an authority.No, I think it's "proper behavior" or moral if you live in an older society that needs to manage property relations and inheritance and therefore must control female reproduction. It's more contradictory in modern society because capitalism both undercuts this need (people can potentially support themselves through wage labor, rather than families) but most capitalist states also promote this because it because they need new generations of workers and can therefore utilize families to take care of those not yet able to support themselves through wages. There would be no moral basis for this if people collectivly saw to eachother's needs: a woman as "property" of fathers and husbands (the feudal model) would have no basis, women as free labor for reproducing and caring for the next generation of workers (the capitalist model) would also have no basis.

The other contemporary problem with moralism is that since it is an ideal for behavior in the capitalist society, when real people don't live up to what the system demands of them (or don't want to) then they are deemed "immoral": they are behaving imporperly, not that the system demands impossible or undesirable things of induviduals. You are a coward if you don't want to go kill in wars for capital; you are lazy if you don't want to spend every free minute trying to compete or get extra jobs; you are weak if you are sad about how yourself or others are mistreated (but usually only when that ill treatment is par for the course in capitlalism).

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

What's "perfected moral knowledge"? There is a platonic morality to which all morality is a flawed attempt to achieve?


Well, that's one version of it ...



Morality is just codes of "proper" behavior and therefore are based in specific circumstances, and since the circumstances of our societies are drenched in class relations, I think class realities determine "morality" of a given society.Morality is a whole value system. And yes I don't dispute the fact that class determines the way "moralities" exist. That doesn't mean that there isn't something true that those various "moralities" are aiming at, though. Class society also has an impact on what people see in scientific research but that doesn't then invalidate all scientific claims, or mean that there's nothing true to them. I disagree with the modern moral position that those who don't work or who steal are lazy and therefore bad, but I agree with the moral position that rape is wrong.



The other contemporary problem with moralism is that since it is an ideal for behavior in the capitalist society, when real people don't live up to what the system demands of them (or don't want to) then they are deemed "immoral": they are behaving imporperly, not that the system demands impossible or undesirable things of induviduals. You are a coward if you don't want to go kill in wars for capital; you are lazy if you don't want to spend every free minute trying to compete or get extra jobs; you are weak if you are sad about how yourself or others are mistreated (but usually only when that ill treatment is par for the course in capitlalism).Is it only capitalists who have expectations of behavior however? One look at the "discrimination" forum would reveal that pretty much every leftist on this forum has VERY strong moral commitments, they just don't think of them as moral commitments.

[argeiphontes]

No, I think it's "proper behavior" or moral if you live in an older society that needs to manage property relations and inheritance and therefore must control female reproduction.


As a (neo, pseudo) Kantian deontologist I'd claim that it is never ethical to interfere with the reproductive rights* of others against their will. Even in ancient times, it would have been immoral to enforce those rules on unwilling people.

* edit: catch me if you can ;-) but why I think its a right is tangential to my reply. I think.

[argeiphontes]

^But in situations where a compromise is necessary, I would apply consequentialist principles to ensure that the fewest people were being used as a means or the fewest rights would be broken.

[zoot_allures]

There could be many possible answers. The one I would tend to use is that benefit according to the subjective values of those involved. That is, if A, B, and C are involved, then they each think they are being helped. While this does involve subjective opinions, you can say that the fact that each person subjectively likes it is an objective measure.
So "cooperative", then, is defined as an "interaction in which all parties benefit according to the subjective values of those involved"?


On the other hand, some might say there's an objective definition of benefit - ie. one where a person might think he's being helped, but is in fact being objectively hurt.
"Hurt" and "helped" still involve value judgements, all of which are subjective in my view. So you still don't have objective morality.


Yes, sometimes there are simply no good solutions. Often, a cooperative solution is also the smartest solution. Just because the current participants can't think of a solution in which they all benefit, that doesn't mean a solution doesn't exist. If someone does think of a solution that benefits them all, then not only would the participants think it the most "moral" solution, but probably the "smartest" solution as well.
What does "smartest" mean? What are the criteria for judging how "smart" a solution is?

Remember that your suggestion was to define "moral" to mean "cooperative". And "cooperative" was taken to mean "interactions in which all parties benefit". Now it seems we have to expand that to "interactions that either have all parties benefit or, if it's not possible for all parties to benefit, are the smartest of all possible interactions". I'm sure you'd agree that this is a rather strange definition of "moral".

[cyu]

where people agree that the best course of action is to cooperate to assign a detriment to some subset of the group? ...you could justify the holocaust based on saying that most people cooperated for the subjective benefit of being rid of minorities.

I'm not sure what definition of "cooperate" you mean, but "detriment" does not imply cooperation to me, nor does getting rid of minorities sound like you're cooperating with the minorities.

In previous posts, I've broken it down like this:

1. Cooperation: Benefits me, benefits you.
2. Competition / selfishness: Benefits me, hurts you.
3. Altruism: Hurts me, benefits you.
4. Stupidity: Hurts me, hurts you.

[cyu]

"Hurt" and "helped" still involve value judgements, all of which are subjective in my view. So you still don't have objective morality.

As mentioned before, you can "objectively" say that each person subjectively believes they are being helped.


Now it seems we have to expand that to "interactions that either have all parties benefit or, if it's not possible for all parties to benefit, are the smartest of all possible interactions".

No, I probably didn't explain clearly. What I mean is that you may be faced with a situation in which nobody involved can think of a solution in which nobody is hurt. So if somebody is bound to be hurt, this will lead to conflict between the people involved. There will be arguments, there may be fights, there will be discomfort and unease, etc.

In other words, they can't think of a cooperative solution to their problem.

However, let's say that after a few hours or days, one of the people there actually does think of a way for nobody to be hurt, and for everyone to benefit. Now all of a sudden, all the conflict can go away, and they don't have to worry so much about who to sacrifice or fighting to avoid having to be the victim. This would be a cooperative solution.

However, I would say it wouldn't just be a "cooperative solution" - I would also say that, in all likelihood, the people involved would (subjectively) believe that it is also the "smartest" solution, since they can now avoid conflict, violence, guilt, wasting time in argument, etc.

[argeiphontes]

I'm not sure what definition of "cooperate" you mean, but "detriment" does not imply cooperation to me

All people in a group can agree that it would be to their collective benefit that some would experience something negative. Like the sailors in the lifeboat. Unless you're saying that everyone must objectively benefit, of course. In which case I don't see a solution to the lifeboat example that results in cooperation.

[cyu]

All people in a group can agree that it would be to their collective benefit that some would experience something negative

You may define that as cooperation, but I would not. As mentioned above, I would see this more along the lines of #2:

Competition / selfishness: Benefits me, hurts you.

...that is, the people that do not believe they are being helped would fall into the "hurts you" group. If you believe one of the people MUST be eaten by the others, then you do not have a cooperative solution. A cooperative solution would be more along the lines of the people on the boat figuring out ways to catch fish.

[Michael22]

There is no objective proof for the existence of a higher being but it is an objective fact that the only way into this world is through two humans coming together in love and our development as a person is subject to other humans behavior and nurture. Morality is everything and there is no alternative. You cannot abandon morality and go and live with animals because you will eventually die or go mad. Moral human behaviour is not subjective, it is an objective reality.

[TiberiusGracchus]

In order for ethics to be studied in a scientific manner we must accept some axioms so that ethics won't just be a matter of subjective opinon, "I believe this, you believe that... who can say who is right?". Otherwise we can't believe in ethical progress, that we can become better.

The axioms I think we should accept cannot be proven. Neither can axioms such as "there's an objective world". But they are value judgements such as that life is better than death, wellbeing better than suffering, health better than weakness, freedom better than oppression, etc. My suspicion that these axioms are biologically rooted is strenghtened by the fact that most mammals act as if also they believed in them. So while we need not hold these as true - whatever that mean - we should hold them as respectable.

If we agree that there is such thing as wellbeing, health, freedom etc. and that it's worth pursuing, then we can scientifically examine which structures and actions that promotes wellbeing and which act against it.





"Hurt" and "helped" still involve value judgements, all of which are subjective in my view. So you still don't have objective morality.

I would definitly say that wether someone is hurt or helped is an objective fact. Having an arrow through your knee is being hurt even if you are unconscious and do not feel it.

Sure if we are hurt it is natural for us to judge it as bad for us, because well... it is. Hume, Moore at al. are wrong, there's not really any gap between "is" and "ought", "judgements of fact" and "judgements of value". It's just confusion over logics and language.

[Comrade #138672]

Objective morality?

Ask Ayn Rand. :lol:

[Usawa]

I recently started taking this class on ethics. Basically the point of the class is to assault us intellectually into accepting metaphysical notions about "objective morality."

Part of it entails bashing cultural relativism, moral skepticism, and emotivism in a very intellectually dishonest way with false equivalences and by basically guilting you into accepting that there is an objective morality by implying that if you don't, you think the holocaust "wasn't wrong."

I don't understand why so many moral nihilists will not take their position to it's logically consistent conclusion. If there is no objective morality (ie . intrinsic value because value is the basic unit of ethical judgments) then your claim that The Holocaust was wrong is completely baseless. You can judge The Holocaust negatively in the same way that you can judge a certain style of music or food negatively but you have no basis for criticizing people with different preferences or perspectives since their preferences and perspectives are not 'wrong' (or factually bad) and no state of affair is any more or less desirable than any other from any impartial or universal view. To be fair, moral nihilism and relativism are two different views and only relativism is self-contradicting.




Objective morality = oxymoron. There is no such thing.

Morality is the field of philosophy that deals with what has value and by extension what constitutes good behavior or character. Objective morality means that some actions (although not necessarily in all scenarios) and moral attitudes are bad whether they're considered bad or not. Without objective morality an ethical worldview can still be criticized as irrational because it is inconsistent (moral consistency requires both value monism and impartiality) but there would be nothing bad about being irrational or holding certain 'values' inconsistently if those 'values' aren't actually inherently valuable to begin with.


ALL morality is abstract and therefore subjective.

I don't understand how this follows. Science is also abstract. So is mathematics. Because morality deals with generalized principles and ideas, it follows from this that it's a matter of opinion?


Class struggle, on the contrary, can be empirically observed and therefore is objective.

I don't think there is evidence for Marxist ideas about class struggle. If there is, why is class exploitation a bad thing?


The Holocaust was wrong

This is a direct contradiction to your claim that objective morality does not exist.


but not for moral reasons, rather HUMANITARIAN reasons which are much more universal than morality.

If you think that some states of affairs are better than other states of affairs and people who disagree are mistaken then you believe in objective morality. It seems that you're just calling 'morality' 'humanitarianism'. Why should someone care about humanitarianism?

[cyu]

Even though I believe, from a sociological and anthropological perspective, that society does tend to have a common definition of morality that might be considered "objective" - that being cooperative behaviors (benefits all sides) are more likely to be considered "moral" by different societies - I would say regardless of whether "objective morality" exists or not, there does exist subjective claims of morality.

That is, someone might say, "murder is immoral" or "murder is not immoral" - "genocide is immoral" or "genocide is not immoral" - all these are subjective statements of what they support. Whether you believe in objective morality or not, if you want to convince that person to change their views (or convince others to ignore their views), you can't appeal to any moral standards that they don't support - you would have to start with something that they do support, and work from there until you build up an argument against their other positions.

Either that, or you just ignore their claims of morality / immorality, and carry on your political work as if they didn't exist - and only deal with them if they become an actual threat to what you're trying to do.

[Future]

Before I begin, let me make clear a common misconception. Cultural Relativism is not the same as respect for cultural differences (though this respect is certainly included with the CR theory). To reject cultural relativism does not mean that you reject a culture’s traditions, customs, music, language, and worldviews simply because they are different; that would be closed-minded and arrogant and not based in reason. Cultural relativism as an ethical theory only becomes relevant if you consider human “ethics” just as relative as non-ethical cultural traits. Chinese table manners and Mexican Quinceañeras are not ethical concerns, so they don’t count when we’re talking about refuting relativism in favor of objectivism. Most would agree (and rightfully so) that Cultural differences and diversity are all good things and generally increase the color in our lives. Diversity is exotic and enriching. This is because it is the realm of subjective desires, aesthetics, and other aspects of life that have no profound moral effects that affect our wellbeing as a species. Just as individuals have subjective desires and tastes, so too do groups of individuals who grow up together. There is nothing wrong with that until we get into an area where subjectivity breaks down – human ethics. Not Chinese ethics, not Western ethics, not Aztec ethics – human ethics: the study of values relating to human conduct with respect to the rightness or wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness or badness of the motives and ends of such actions. So, cultural relativism (CR) is an ethical theory that makes six basic claims, all of them independent of one another; that is to say some might be true while others aren’t, or all may be true or false in tandem:


1. Different societies have different moral codes.
2. There is no objective standard that can be used to judge one societal code better than another.
3. The moral code of our own society has no special status; it is merely one among many.
4. There is no “universal truth” in ethics – that is, there are no moral truths that hold for all people for all times.
5. The moral code of a society determines what is right within that society; that is, if the moral code of a society says that a certain action is right, then that action is right, at least within that society.
6. It is mere arrogance for us to try to judge the conduct of other peoples. We should adopt an attitude of tolerance toward the practices of other cultures.


Response to #s 1 and 3:


These are merely descriptive claims, not normative or prescriptive claims. “A woman does not show her face in Saudi Arabia” is a descriptive statement; it describes what is. “A woman should not show her face in Saudi Arabia” on the other hand, is a prescriptive “ought” statement; it describes what ought to be. It is a fact that different cultures often have different moral codes, and no one is arguing against such an accurate description. When one begins to mix the descriptive with the prescriptive however, we get something called an invalid logical argument, that is, where the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises - as shown in the syllogism below:


Premise: Saudis believe it is right to make grown women cover their faces in public. Most Americans do not believe that is morally acceptable.


Conclusion: Therefore, it is morally right for the Saudis to make women cover their faces, but not morally right for Americans to do so.


As you can see, the descriptive premise (what is) does not lend support to the prescriptive conclusion (what should be). The conclusion is invalid. It’s no different than the mock argument below:


Premise: Dogs bite when they are mad.


Conclusion: Therefore, it is good that dogs bite people.


Response to #4:


If #4 is true, it would mean that there are no universal ethical truths that hold for all peoples for all time, and that matters of right and wrong are relative to the culture in which we live. But if that is true, then isn’t the very idea: “there are no universal truths in ethics, therefore all our concepts of right and wrong are relative” itself a universal, non-relative ethical truth claim? Cultural relativists are saying that it is ethically true that there are no ethical truths. That’s a direct logical contradiction. Cultural relativism can’t possibly claim to be true in any objective sense since, according to its beliefs, there is no objective truth! Why do cultural relativists even bother promoting their idea since by their own criteria it’s just as valid as its theoretical opponent? We should try to avoid contradiction and inconsistency in our search for an ethical framework.

So, that proves that CR is invalid as well as contradictory, so now I’ll prove it’s inconsistent by examining the three consequences if in fact CR were true (assuming the logical contradiction above didn’t exist):


1. If cultural relativism were true, we could no longer criticize the customs of other societies.
2. If cultural relativism were true, we could no longer criticize the customs of our own society (since CR claims that whatever a society thinks is right, is in fact right by default for that society).
3. If cultural relativism were true, it would make moral progress impossible.


Consequence #1 is derived from the second, third, and sixth claims. If we cannot criticize the customs of other societies, we would have to sit idly by as people outside our society are tortured and murdered and raped. Legitimate harm would be befalling people (human beings just like us) and we would have to turn the other way. We would have to accept that physical and psychological harm to unwilling parties in this other society is in fact a good thing simply on the basis that it’s another culture.


Our inaction would then actually qualify as action in support of that harm (MLK brilliantly proves why inaction in the face of injustice = action in promotion of that injustice). The Nazi genocide of the Jews for instance would’ve had to have continued without outside intervention from the Allies lest this intervening party act immorally by saving the lives of innocent men, women, and children being executed and tortured on a daily basis. Genocide might be immoral to us, but it wasn’t immoral under Nazi Germany (according to CR), and our intervention would be violating Nazi Germany’s moral value structure, which would be immoral on our part. You can start to see how morally bankrupt CR is.


Consequence #2 is derived from the fifth claim of CR. We would not be morally permitted to question the ethics of our own culture, since our culture is what defines what is moral for us in the first place! But what if you truly disagree with the rules of your culture? Cultural relativism’s test for determining what is right or wrong is that you ask whether the action in question is in accordance with the customs of your culture at this point in its history - if so, then you’d be immoral to question it. If this theory were true, it would mean that CR is seriously oppressive since it does not need to offer any rational justification for imposing a particular cultural value on people. It’s the destruction of reason in favor of illegitimate, chaotic, baseless, social authority.


Consequence #3: Since cultural relativism makes it impossible to justifiably disagree with any practices that are in effect, the idea of moral progress is out of the question. To progress is to move forward, and to move forward is to change. And how can a society’s value structure be changed if that structure cannot be judged as deficient?


Luckily, not all of us are cultural relativists. Those who rejected cultural relativism have helped society evolve in ways that constitute not just differences, but improvements (universally in support of our species’ survival and enhancement of that survival across the board). Improvements explained as progressive recognition of objectively superior values. If our conceptions of right and wrong were based solely on our culture’s practices, it would be pretty hard to account for the ethical advances of our current civilization. Slavery has been virtually abolished worldwide (exempting wage slavery for the sake of argument). Worldwide rules of war have been adopted so that death doesn’t have to be so painful. Human sacrifice is no longer practiced as a religious ritual. Racial segregation is no longer a norm. Women should not be treated as property. All of which, most would agree, are objectively “good” things. None of this can happen under cultural relativism. None of this can happen without people who are brave enough to question the status quo. Social reformers (and wannabe reformers like us radical lefties) claim that they are judging their culture against a standard of an ideal society that transcends culture because it is based on logic, reason, and properly derived justice instead of blind authority and chaos in the name of respecting difference. We should work for an objective framework for ethics, an ethics that works for all humans for all time - and I’ve shown why it’s the only “true” kind of ethics there can be.


So to conclude, CR is illogical, it is contradictory, it is inconsistent, and it fails to offer an explanation for worldwide social progress. But again, non-moral cultural traits and differences are not subject to objectivity because human beings are naturally social animals with a diverse range of aesthetic tastes. These things appeal to our relative desires and their existence are no threat to the fabric and nature of humanity. Ethics on the other hand is different as it applies universally to everyone because it deals directly with threats to the fabric and nature of humanity. Ethics concerns life and death, good and evil, rights and freedom – for all constituents of our species universally. These things, as shown above, just cannot (and should not) be relative.


And please keep in mind that objective ethics = /= universal (as in cosmic) ethics like with theism. There are no laws of physics that provide a moral framework, there are no moral authorities. But considering our nature as a species, we can determine what is objectively in our best interest. This is what philosophers refer to when they talk about objective ethics.

[Mx95]

Our inaction would then actually qualify as action in support of that harm (MLK brilliantly proves why inaction in the face of injustice = action in promotion of that injustice). The Nazi genocide of the Jews for instance would’ve had to have continued without outside intervention from the Allies lest this intervening party act immorally by saving the lives of innocent men, women, and children being executed and tortured on a daily basis. Genocide might be immoral to us, but it wasn’t immoral under Nazi Germany (according to CR), and our intervention would be violating Nazi Germany’s moral value structure, which would be immoral on our part. You can start to see how morally bankrupt CR is.

Don't you think those who were being acted upon (e.g. jews) would find their own torture and murder immoral (in Nazi Germany)? In that case, there were two values systems competing (i.e. system instability) with each other in Nazi Germany, and intervention was necessary to try and stop the competition.

We happen to go and eliminate the cause/source of the competition or whoever is superimposing one value system, onto another (i.e. Nazi Germany).

[Future]

Don't you think those who were being acted upon (e.g. jews) would find their own torture and murder immoral (in Nazi Germany)? In that case, there were two values systems competing (i.e. system instability) with each other in Nazi Germany, and intervention was necessary to try and stop the competition.

We happen to go and eliminate the cause/source of the competition or whoever is superimposing one value system, onto another (i.e. Nazi Germany).

Yes, we can objectively determine that the genocide was carried out by the use illegitimate authority, and we can thus be justified in overthrowing such an immoral apparatus. We can prove that the act of the genocide itself was objectively immoral as it denied free persons their right to free association and most importantly, the right to life. A right that becomes evident when we consider human nature and the individual's logical purusit of his/her survivial and the enhancement of that survival. The Nazi genocide is not only contradictory to human nature (as it denies the universal pursuit of life), it is logically contradictory to reason, as no normative case can be justified in favor of infringing on such a pursuit, given what we know of our nature.

[Fegelnator]

You might want to look into consequentialism and utilitarianism. Check out the book "Living High and Letting Die" by Peter Unger, most of it was online for free. (It has those funny thought experiments about pushing people in front of streetcars to save a herd of kindergarten kids and was an enjoyable read.)

Personally it's hard for me to reject Kantian ethics, but I think utilitarianism is the proper calculus for applying them. Watch out for Nozick's Utility Monster. I'd say its not real but now I think it's my cat ;)

edit: actually I take that back about Kant because I can't remember how I came to that conclusion. But it's nice to think that space aliens could only probe Uranus ;)

Sorry dude, Kant was anti-utilitarian in ethics. Unless you meant that?