Origin of morality

[Plu]

I would submit that you can both observe and interact with similar behaviors all around the world, which at the very least, imply an objective standard. For example, the overwhelming majority of all people and cultures have decried and condemned the following to one degree or another:

The unjustified taking of innocent human life
Stealing the property of others
Having an inordinate envious desire for things that do not belong to you
Cheating on your wife
Being a liar
Dishonoring your parents (family)

Two problems.

1) "the overwhelming majority of" does not imply an absolute, for that it'd have to be "all"
2) all of these are defined as tautologies; they do not refer to specific actions, but use words that are by definition unacceptable actions without specifying what those words mean.

What does it mean "to cheat on your wife"? Is that a specific, objective action? Because if what you mean is "having sex with someone else while married" then it's not considered immoral by everyone. For example, I'm in an open relationship so it would be perfectly acceptable for me to have sex with someone other than my wife.
But on the other hand, if it means "don't have sex without your wife's permission" then it becomes totally subjective whether or not having sex outside of marriage is cheating.
And if you call me immoral for having an open relationship, you've returned to defining morality as objective by branding anyone who doesn't agree with your morals an immoral person without showing why your morality is the only objective truth.

In any case, you're kinda stuck with morals being subjective. And this is just one example.

[gomtuu77]

Independent & non-contingent.  

Independent of or to what?

Of any contingent thing or anything that ever began to exist.

[Colanth]

Independent & non-contingent.  

Independent of or to what?

Of any contingent thing or anything that ever began to exist.

IOW, something like "X was immoral even before there were human beings"?  (It can't be something like murder, because you can't murder anything but a human being, by definition.)

Sorry, no.  Morality requires sentient beings.  Trees can't be immoral.  Hydrogen gas can't be immoral.  Without sentient beings, everything is amoral (nothing has any moral value, good or bad).

Morality is contingent on conditions.  If the only choices are bad and worse, bad is the better choice even if, under other conditions, we'd consider it immoral.

[gomtuu77]

Two problems.

1) "the overwhelming majority of" does not imply an absolute, for that it'd have to be "all"

Keep in mind what I said earlier. There is a difference between the facts on the ground (what is) and the moral value (what ought to be).  You want to be careful not to confuse changing factual situations (e.g. the greater or lesser degrees of aberration people may demonstrate in their behavior) with the unchanging moral value itself.  In other words, it does not follow that because a law is not followed both universally and perfectly, that the law itself does not exist.  The fact that the behavior is so widespread amongst such a overwhelming majority throughout a range of both times and cultures does imply an absolute to which we have access as human beings.

2) all of these are defined as tautologies; they do not refer to specific actions, but use words that are by definition unacceptable actions without specifying what those words mean.

You may have a point here, in that I was simply speaking off the cuff, but these are essentially elements of the 10 commandments against lying, covetousness, murder, theft, etc...  I assumed wrongly that the connection could be made without a precise listing of that acts in question, in part because I was speaking in terms of societal views rather than specific actions at the time.  My apologies.

What does it mean "to cheat on your wife"? Is that a specific, objective action? Because if what you mean is "having sex with someone else while married" then it's not considered immoral by everyone. For example, I'm in an open relationship so it would be perfectly acceptable for me to have sex with someone other than my wife.

But on the other hand, if it means "don't have sex without your wife's permission" then it becomes totally subjective whether or not having sex outside of marriage is cheating.

And if you call me immoral for having an open relationship, you've returned to defining morality as objective by branding anyone who doesn't agree with your morals an immoral person without showing why your morality is the only objective truth.

In any case, you're kinda stuck with morals being subjective. And this is just one example.

Yes, it is.  I just assumed the connection could / would be made, but that's my penchant for inappropriately giving the benefit of the doubt.  Again, this is a confusion of fact and value.  All kinds of people can redefine circumstances in their own mind and life in order to rationalize that they are not violating the moral law.  This is the changing factual situation on the ground.  You could say the same thing about the murdering of Jews during World War II.  Did each Nazi believe he was taking the life of an innocent human being without proper justification?  No, probably not.  The fact that he was indeed doing that very thing made no difference to him, given his own personally rationalized understanding and resulting aberration in behavior.  When the fact / value distinction is not made, you can certainly come away with what appears to be subjective morality.  However, if morality is truly subjective, then no single act is genuinely wrong.  It would only be wrong in the same the same way that putting honey on a hamburger is wrong.  It's just not my preference.

Whether one is branded or not, their morality or immorality remains the same.  Since the moral law is objective in nature, it doesn't matter whether anyone is branded or whether anyone agrees.  It simply is a contravention or it is not.  The willing outward conscious recognition on the part of those involved is essentially irrelevant to the fact itself.  If one redefines or lowers the bar, as it were, with respect to what counts as cheating or adultery, then we're not talking about any change in the moral law itself.  We're talking about a defect or change in the involved parties' understanding and therefore, appropriate application of the moral law to their specific circumstance.  The example I gave in the earlier post applies.

"...it was once the case that witches were sentenced as murderers, but now they are not. What changed was not the moral principle that murder is wrong. Rather, our understanding changed about whether witches really murder people by their curses. One's factual understanding of a moral situation is relative, but the moral values involved in the situation are not."

[gomtuu77]

Of any contingent thing or anything that ever began to exist.

IOW, something like "X was immoral even before there were human beings"?  (It can't be something like murder, because you can't murder anything but a human being, by definition.)

Sorry, no.  Morality requires sentient beings.  Trees can't be immoral.  Hydrogen gas can't be immoral.  Without sentient beings, everything is amoral (nothing has any moral value, good or bad).

Morality is contingent on conditions.  If the only choices are bad and worse, bad is the better choice even if, under other conditions, we'd consider it immoral.

This is actually not true.  Moral facts are true facts even if the acts themselves have yet to be instantiated in reality.  That is the essential difference between moral facts and the everyday facts of life.  For example, if I said, "my dog, Soldier, eats grass when he goes outside."  What would be necessary for that to be a true fact?  My dog, Soldier, would have to have eaten grass when he went outside.  But if I said, "it is wrong to torture handicap babies for fun",  would that act have had to occur before it could be true?  No!  It would be true regardless of whether it had been instantiated.  That's part of the difference between objective and non-objective morality.  Objective morality can tell you about the morality of future events that have yet to occur, while non-objective or contingent moralities cannot.  Our understanding the appropriate application of the moral law is contingent, but that's different than saying the moral law itself is contingent.  But yes, there are circumstances where the moral thing to do is to make the choice that prevents the most evil, but nothing about morality has changed in that circumstance.  It wouldn't be the case that you were intentionally choosing bad in order to bring about bad.  It would be that you were choosing the bad in order to prevent the worse.  The fact / value distinction is vital to being able to understand the concept of objective morality, as well as how it cashes out in real terms.

[ApostateLois]

There is no such thing as objective morality. Something is good or bad because we say it is, and not because there is something intrinsically good or bad about it. Murder is bad, we always say--except when we murder lots and lots of people in war. Then it is good. The people being murdered don't think so, of course, but who cares what they think? They'll be dead soon. Even Christians have no problems with murder, rape, slavery, you name it, as long as they can justify it by saying "God told me to do it." They've done this all through history, are doing it now, and will continue doing so until Christianity is replaced by some other, equally horrifying religion. Morals are relative, even to those who shriek the loudest that they are not.

[Plu]

Keep in mind what I said earlier. There is a difference between the facts on the ground (what is) and the moral value (what ought to be). You want to be careful not to confuse changing factual situations (e.g. the greater or lesser degrees of aberration people may demonstrate in their behavior) with the unchanging moral value itself. In other words, it does not follow that because a law is not followed both universally and perfectly, that the law itself does not exist. The fact that the behavior is so widespread amongst such a overwhelming majority throughout a range of both times and cultures does imply an absolute to which we have access as human beings.

You are not showing any evidence of said objective rules, though. Certain behaviours are widespread because they work, and they only continue to be widespread as long as they continue to do so. All the civilizations that do not follow certain simple rules (like "don't kill your neighbour for no reason") will quickly succumb to other civilizations. These rules aren't based on some objective morality, they're based on the simple fact that you need to follow them in order to live as a clan.

But those rules are extremely mallable. Specific actions are almost impossible to call "wrong" because they've been considered right at some point in our history. Again; the only thing you're doing is claiming objective morality by default. There's nothing to show for it existing based on the history of the human race and the fact that civilizations with completely different morals existed for centuries or even millenia.

But if I said, "it is wrong to torture handicap babies for fun", would that act have had to occur before it could be true?

Again, loaded language. Of course this doesn't have to occur before it can be true. It's true by definition of the word "torture", which is a word that has "wrong" contained in itself. You can leave out all the other parts and just end up with "torture is wrong" and you end up with yet another tautology because torture is defined as wrong.

Now when you try to come up with situations where you don't use loaded language to describe actions, you'll find that it quickly gets really complicated to have a black/white moral/immoral view of said action, and it also becomes much easier to find examples of situations where it's the best option as well as cultures where it was totally acceptable.

Torturing babies for fun might be wrong, but tossing handicapped babies off a cliff was pretty normal stuff for the ancient Spartans and they didn't consider it immoral. The fact that nobody in their culture did but you do merely shows that you have a different view of morality, which makes it subjective.

Again; the only way to claim "objective morality" is by claiming that every human culture in the history of the world was deeply and horribly immoral, including your own. That makes "moral" and "immoral" into words that are basically completely useless.

[Poison Tree]

The fact that the behavior is so widespread amongst such a overwhelming majority throughout a range of both times and cultures does imply an absolute to which we have access as human beings.

You know what behavior is widespread among an "overwhelming majority throughout a range of both times and cultures"? Making enemies of your neighbors and slaughtering them as much as possible or practical. Based on that, should we conclude that slaughtering your enemy is objectively moral? Know what has been overwhelmingly accepted throughout human history? Slavery. Should we conclude that slavery is objectively moral?

[Sargon The Grape]

The fact that the behavior is so widespread amongst such a overwhelming majority throughout a range of both times and cultures does imply an absolute to which we have access as human beings.

Or it could mean evolution drove us into that pattern of behavior, as it has driven countless other species into their patterns of behavior. Behavioral consistency within a species is hardly indicative of moral absolutes, much less a magical skydaddy to invent them.

[Colanth]

Two problems.

1) "the overwhelming majority of" does not imply an absolute, for that it'd have to be "all"

Keep in mind what I said earlier. There is a difference between the facts on the ground (what is) and the moral value (what ought to be).

"Ought" is an opinion, which would make it relative morality, not absolute morality.  It really doesn't matter whose opinion it is, yours or a god's, it's still relative morality unless you redefine some words.

You want to be careful not to confuse changing factual situations (e.g. the greater or lesser degrees of aberration people may demonstrate in their behavior) with the unchanging moral value itself.  In other words, it does not follow that because a law is not followed both universally and perfectly, that the law itself does not exist.

But so far all we have is an assertion that moral laws exist aside from people.  You haven't presented any evidence.

The fact that the behavior is so widespread amongst such a overwhelming majority throughout a range of both times and cultures does imply an absolute

To theists, maybe.  To others it implies that over and over, the same morals work and the same morals fail.  But it doesn't imply that some moral "law" exists aside from thought.

2) all of these are defined as tautologies; they do not refer to specific actions, but use words that are by definition unacceptable actions without specifying what those words mean.

You may have a point here, in that I was simply speaking off the cuff, but these are essentially elements of the 10 commandments against lying, covetousness, murder, theft, etc...

Taken from MUCH earlier moralities.  Even ca. 1850 BCE, there were prohibitions against covetousness, murder, theft, lying, etc.

Whether one is branded or not, their morality or immorality remains the same.  Since the moral law is objective in nature

Your assertion - still no evidence.

"...it was once the case that witches were sentenced as murderers, but now they are not. What changed was not the moral principle that murder is wrong.

"Murder" is, and always has been, a legal term, meaning "killing in violation of the law".  It never had anything to do with morality.  Until historically recent times, the law was to test witches by killing them, so killing them wasn't murder.  Following the law is neither inherently moral or inherently immoral, it's just expedient.

[Colanth]

Of any contingent thing or anything that ever began to exist.

IOW, something like "X was immoral even before there were human beings"?  (It can't be something like murder, because you can't murder anything but a human being, by definition.)

Sorry, no.  Morality requires sentient beings.  Trees can't be immoral.  Hydrogen gas can't be immoral.  Without sentient beings, everything is amoral (nothing has any moral value, good or bad).

Morality is contingent on conditions.  If the only choices are bad and worse, bad is the better choice even if, under other conditions, we'd consider it immoral.

This is actually not true.  Moral facts are true facts even if the acts themselves have yet to be instantiated in reality.

This is actually not true, since "moral facts" are things asserted by people.

That is the essential difference between moral facts and the everyday facts of life.  For example, if I said, "my dog, Soldier, eats grass when he goes outside."  What would be necessary for that to be a true fact?  My dog, Soldier, would have to have eaten grass when he went outside.  But if I said, "it is wrong to torture handicap babies for fun",  would that act have had to occur before it could be true?

No, since you're just stating your opinion.  Whether it falls in line with what everyone else thinks or not, it's still not a statement of fact, it's just an opinion.  Using the word "wrong" inherently MAKES a statement an opinion.  Or don't you understand language?

That may be your problem - that you think that just because every single person on the planet shares a particular opinion, that makes it some kind of objective fact.  It doesn't.  An opinion is an opinion even if every sentient creature in the universe shares it.  Using agreement as evidence that the opinion agreed with is a fact is argumentum ad numerum, yet that's the only argument you've presented so far - that it appears to you that, since everyone agrees, there MUST BE some underlying objective law.  The ONLY response needed to that is "I don't accept your assertion without evidence".  The fact that everyone agrees with something doesn't make it correct or a law.  And the fact that at least one person in the history of our species has tortured at least one handicapped child for fun means that not everyone agrees that it's wrong.  (One case destroys the assertion of "everyone".)

[Poison Tree]

gomtuu77, since you've referenced the 10 commandments, I'm curious as to how you would rate them (describe their accuracy and completeness) as a revelation of these absolute moral facts you claim exist

[Colanth]

gomtuu77, since you've referenced the 10 commandments, I'm curious as to how you would rate them (describe their accuracy and completeness) as a revelation of these absolute moral facts you claim exist

Which 10 commandments?  The Bible lists 3 different sets.  (And different sects and religions use still different ones.)

[gomtuu77]

There is no such thing as objective morality. Something is good or bad because we say it is, and not because there is something intrinsically good or bad about it. Murder is bad, we always say--except when we murder lots and lots of people in war. Then it is good. The people being murdered don't think so, of course, but who cares what they think? They'll be dead soon. Even Christians have no problems with murder, rape, slavery, you name it, as long as they can justify it by saying "God told me to do it." They've done this all through history, are doing it now, and will continue doing so until Christianity is replaced by some other, equally horrifying religion. Morals are relative, even to those who shriek the loudest that they are not.

That's perfectly fine.  That would simply mean that exterminating 6 million Jews wasn't actually wrong.  It is wrong now because we won the war and we say it's wrong today.  And that's fine.  It's my contention that Hitler's act of mass murder was wrong, regardless of who did or did not say so.  If you think it's reasonable to only be able to condemn immoral behavior in the same way that we choose between ice cream flavors, have at it!  I don't think that corresponds to reality at all, and I don't think that such a view is born out by history.  The rest of your comments have little to do with reality at all, so far as I can tell.  I don't know any Christians today who would accept God made me do it for murder, rape, and slavery, but I guess you know a bunch.  If you're talking about the past, then again, you're failing to make the fact / value distinction.  Our understanding of the moral law and how it should apply does change over time, but the law itself remains the same.  Numerous examples have already been given.  If your confusion remains, re-read.

[gomtuu77]

This is actually not true, since "moral facts" are things asserted by people.

So you're saying that it could be okay to torture handicap babies for fun?  Perhaps you don't think it's okay, but since moral facts are just a human assertion, it could actually be a completely acceptable thing to do.  Hmmmmm... That's very interesting.  Sad, but interesting.

No, since you're just stating your opinion.  Whether it falls in line with what everyone else thinks or not, it's still not a statement of fact, it's just an opinion.  Using the word "wrong" inherently MAKES a statement an opinion.  Or don't you understand language?

Right, the idea that torturing handicap babies for fun being wrong is just an opinion, which means that someone else could hold the opposite opinion and be just as right.  If that's your view, have at it.  It's not my view.  And no, the word inherently doesn't make something opinion.  Inherent is just a synonym for intrinsic.  It's use doesn't change the nature of a fact in any way.

That may be your problem - that you think that just because every single person on the planet shares a particular opinion, that makes it some kind of objective fact.  It doesn't.  An opinion is an opinion even if every sentient creature in the universe shares it.  Using agreement as evidence that the opinion agreed with is a fact is argumentum ad numerum, yet that's the only argument you've presented so far - that it appears to you that, since everyone agrees, there MUST BE some underlying objective law.  The ONLY response needed to that is "I don't accept your assertion without evidence".  The fact that everyone agrees with something doesn't make it correct or a law.  And the fact that at least one person in the history of our species has tortured at least one handicapped child for fun means that not everyone agrees that it's wrong.  (One case destroys the assertion of "everyone".)

I'm not using agreement as evidence.  You've entirely missed the point of what I've said, especially regarding the fact / value distinction.  I've already stated that our behaviors can actually vary from culture to culture, and that has no impact on the objective nature of the moral law.  You can certainly continue to deny that it's genuinely wrong to torture handicap babies for fun and render it as mere opinion if you'd like, but that doesn't serve as a refutation of any kind. Quite frankly, why bother to refute if you're comfortable with such a heinous point of view?  What does it really matter?  Torturing handicap babies?  I like vanilla and she likes chocolate!  Same thing, right?  It's all just an opinion.  Wow...