Objectivity

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

What are your thoughts on the objective/subjective controversy. Certainly, Marx and other thinkers have championed subjectivism in response to the objective morality emerging from religious sources. However, the arguments for the nonexistance or non-accessability of objectivity seem irrelevant or nihilistic. Thoughts.

Can we have objective in scientific matters? For instance, triangles exist regardless of whether we call them triangles. They have a link to the emperical world.

However, when we ask whether something is morally just, we are basing our conclusion (which can be objective deductively) on subjectively established premises. Therefore, the question, for me at least, comes down to whether or not these premises can be objective.

Confusing myself. Have fun with this one.

[hoopla]

I am intersted in this question, mostly because after studying the philosophy of science for a couple of years it suddenly became apparent that (at least I think) no-one can explain natural loaws without relying on an ontology that does not seem too far away from one explaining good and bad, obligation etc. as objective properties (?).

I dunno what you mean by subjective "premises".

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

If we agree that a triangle exists regardless of whether we call it a triangle or something else, we move on from there. However, many people disagree on this point. If we agree, we can move onward and say.

The triangle is a name we subjectively call the object we perceive based on subjectively established definitions. Similiarly, we use subjective definitions to determine things like the fact that homosexuality is not immoral. From these subjective premises, we form deductive conclusions like allowing gay marriage.

So, the question exists as to whether or not homosexuality being ok (the subjective premise) is legitimate becomes an issue. The premise itself has a deductive proof - there are no reasons why we view it as wrong. However, if you draw this train of though back far enough you are eventually relying on the fact that we subjectively called a triangle a triangle.

Therefore, we are debating whether or not objective definitions can exist. More specifically, we are arguing that we can be wrong to name a triangle a triangle instead of a quazark. Or perhaps we are wrong to name a triangle a triangle - instead we should name it any one of 70000 names.

They way I see it we should use subjective premises that are widely agreed upon (what a triangle is) to form deductive conclusions (homosexuality is legitimate).

Fudge... I got myself a bit deep here. Arguing that a triangle should be called a quazark as a matter of objective fact seems strange. However, it also seems correct.

In fact, I think I solved my problem. I'll think about it more and get back to you. I am taking the side of objectivity. It is probably true that a triangle should not be named a triangle. However, it is possible that a triangle is a legitimate name for such an object.

[JKP]

Morality is subjective; there is no objective base for it. Morality is a social construct. Adopting morals or humanism is a choice.

[hoopla]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2006 12:20 pm
Morality is a social construct. Adopting morals or humanism is a choice.
Neither of these statements mean that morality is not objective.

[Delta]

Morality is certainly subjective. You can't measure "goodness" in the lab. Anything that has to be decided upon, and isn't discovered, can't be objective.

[Hit The North]

Originally posted by hoopla+November 26, 2006 03:02 pm--> (hoopla @ November 26, 2006 03:02 pm)
[email protected] 26, 2006 12:20 pm
Morality is a social construct. Adopting morals or humanism is a choice.
Neither of these statements mean that morality is not objective. [/b]
Depends how you define objectivity. If your objective world refers to a material reality which exists independently of human perception, then morality must be subjective because it depends wholly on human cognition.

[MrDoom]

If your objective world refers to a material reality which exists independently of human perception, then morality must be subjective because it depends wholly on human cognition.
Morality is not only dependent of human cognition, but it IS human cognition.

A lightning bolt that strikes and kills a tree did not act "evil". Nor is an animal that kills and eats a nest of baby birds malicious. It is simply the process of the material world. The universe does not care who or what it destroys with its natural forces, or what they think of it.

A construct of the sapient mind, that is all that morality is.

[hoopla]

Originally posted by Citizen Zero+November 26, 2006 11:46 pm--> (Citizen Zero @ November 26, 2006 11:46 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2006 03:02 pm

[email protected] 26, 2006 12:20 pm
Morality is a social construct. Adopting morals or humanism is a choice.
Neither of these statements mean that morality is not objective.
Depends how you define objectivity. If your objective world refers to a material reality which exists independently of human perception, then morality must be subjective because it depends wholly on human cognition. [/b]
Well, to say that a X is morally wrong, you could say that the moral judgement depends also on properties of X, in that case it does not depend solely on cognition but also physical reality.

Besides which, I do not think that it is impossible for something to be a social construct and objective. Levinas e.g. thinks the source of all ethics is the encounter with another, yet is an objective fact that I ought not to murder that person.

[hoopla]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2006 08:02 pm
Morality is certainly subjective. You can't measure "goodness" in the lab. Anything that has to be decided upon, and isn't discovered, can't be objective.
You can't really measure mathematical thereoms in the lab, either. Theyt are objectively true or false, aren't they?

[hoopla]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2006 12:10 am
A lightning bolt that strikes and kills a tree did not act "evil". Nor is an animal that kills and eats a nest of baby birds malicious. It is simply the process of the material world. The universe does not care who or what it destroys with its natural forces, or what they think of it.
I think strecthing the concept of responsibility to lightning bolts and animals is, obviously, not possible. I don't see how this proves that responsibility does not exist. That not all things are green, does not mean that it is impossible that this smiley is green :)

[hoopla]

Double post

[apathy maybe]

I think that there exists an objective world (contrary to Nietzsche's's thought), however, I don't think that people (or any animal) can access that objective world directly.

On science, while the aim of science is to create an approximation to the real (objective) world (and there are a variety of techniques to do this), it is a subjective process (just like life it self).

On religion and morality, there are no objective morals or ethics. After all, what created them? God? But God does not exist. So ethics and morals are purely subjective. That is not to say that my ethics are not better then somebody else's ethics.

On triangles, triangles exist, but I don'they exist outside of mathematics (the world is not perfect). Calling a triangle a triangle or a quazark or something else, does not change the objective (mathematical) facts about triangles. The name is subjective, but the maths exist independently of the name. A three sided 2d shape on a flat plane will be a triangle, even if it is called something else.

[hoopla]

On religion and morality, there are no objective morals or ethics. After all, what created them? God? But God does not exist. So ethics and morals are purely subjective. That is not to say that my ethics are not better then somebody else's ethics.
I am fed up with arguing anout this to my A-level standard philosophy. But I will ask what created laws, or numbers, and what I've put in italics I've tried to show is false elsewhere, and even if I was wrong, its just an opinion and cannot, obviously, be generalizable to me.

Anyway, whats so good about arguing that good is subjective? I don't buy the impossible ontology argument, as I explained in my first post on this thread.

*Yawn*

:)

[armedpoet]

Alas I don't have time or energy to get into this at the moment but I think Berkley summed it up well when he said 'esse is percipi' - to be is to be perceived.

[apathy maybe]

hoopla: What I meant by that italiced statement is that, subjectivly my ethics are better then other ethics. Obviously objectivly they are all equal, but subjectivly, to me, my views are better. Savvy?

armedpoet: I don't know if I quite understand what you mean? Berkley was a theist and tried to claim that since God viewed everything it existed. But if God could not see (or percieve) something (for example, if God did not exist), and if no one else could see that thing, then it did not exist.

[armedpoet]

Berkley may have been a theist but this is not what he meant when he said that to be is to be perceived. He was arguing for complete subjectivity. According to Berkley nothing existed outside of the mind's interpretation.

I perceive and therefore I exist.

Very similar to existentialist subjectivity.

[Hit The North]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2006 05:54 pm
Berkley may have been a theist but this is not what he meant when he said that to be is to be perceived. He was arguing for complete subjectivity. According to Berkley nothing existed outside of the mind's interpretation.


If nothing exists outside the mind's interpretation, what exactly is the mind interpreting?