# Can morality be objective? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ethics\ **Created:** [September 29, 2026, 5:52am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317 "2026-09-29T05:52:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![invicta](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/invicta/32/1147_2.png) [@invicta](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/invicta)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 8:46am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/21 "2026-09-30T08:46:10Z")
Without convoluting things, there are certain actions that are immoral under all circumstances such as rape for example. But should one immoral act like this imply that there are other facts that hint to morality being objective across more actions ? Think of morality as rules for the moment, what you can and can’t do, or laws. From this point of view morality can change as laws do yet there are certain immutable laws which can be infringed due to selfishness such as overextending a conservatory to your neighbours garden which is illegal and enforced by law. The next question then is why do we have laws in the first place and that is to protect our rights and sovereignty and ignorance of the law is no defence. ---
**Author:** ![Astorre](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/astorre/32/545_2.png) [@Astorre](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Astorre)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 8:57am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/22 "2026-09-30T08:57:42Z")
Yes, that is important. My previous response outlined my position. That position was that the laws currently in force are an expression of an ideology—which, in turn, represents a well-founded, coherent, and contemporary conception of the good. Naturally, these elements are mutually determining, and I do not single out a primary source of morality. From this perspective, it becomes apparent that our notions regarding the objectivity of morality are premature. Take rape, for instance. I condemn it (as do most people today, I imagine). Yet, a long time ago, I watched a film about cavemen (I don’t recall exactly which one). It depicted a scene where a caveman took a cavewoman against her will, while their fellow tribesmen viewed the event with near-indifference. In fact, the woman’s resistance seemed only to stoke the caveman’s ardor. I do not know if things actually happened that way, but I can certainly accept that they might have. Many would argue that such behavior is objectively immoral. My reply, however, is that it depends on one’s perspective (considering the era, society, and prevailing concepts of good and evil). It is crucial to note that this is not a justification for rape; rather, it is simply a specific example of what is possible. ---
**Author:** ![Friend0fDiotima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/46a35a/32.png) [@Friend0fDiotima](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Friend0fDiotima)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 12:28pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/23 "2026-09-30T12:28:09Z")
I have wrestled with these issues also. A Starting point for me is as a Top down solutions through Kantianism logic found in his Categorical Imperative. A maxim “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end." “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” These are two things from where I start and it barely scratch the surface of the problem. I would be naïve to think these are solutions in themselves. ---
**Author:** ![AmadeusD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f9ae1b/32.png) [@AmadeusD](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/AmadeusD)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 7:04pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/24 "2026-09-30T19:04:06Z")
> [@Scorpion](#): > > It may not be possible to derive an ought from an is but clarity on the ises will greatly enhance our moral reasoning and that falls within the purview of science. Definitely agree with this, and I am pretty intimately aware of Harris and his views, but they eventually boil down to a species of incredulity at other views, rather than a grounding in science. You have to get off the ground for science to tell us anything, in a metaphysical sense. But yes, it would patently ridiculous to _not_ think the avenues towards physical health in humans is not desirable (i.e moral in this context). But that just doesn’t make it objective, and I find it misleading to take cases like this and say they have somehow come up with that. ---
**Author:** ![AmadeusD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f9ae1b/32.png) [@AmadeusD](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/AmadeusD)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 7:05pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/25 "2026-09-30T19:05:45Z")
> [@invicta](#): > > Without convoluting things, there are certain actions that are immoral under all circumstances such as rape for example. This is an interesting case, because there is still a question of “why?”. It’s not that I don’t share this intuition strongly enough to put myself in danger to enforce it (i have done exactly this in the past) but It does raise the question above… Why is this immoral in every circumstance? What is the wrong-maker? A rights violation? Ok, but rights are invented so we’re not going far there. The pain/psychological pain the victim endures? Well, that’s not always an immoral outcome so can’t be, in and of itself, a wrong-maker etc..etc… ---
**Author:** ![FireOlogist](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/fireologist/32/597_2.png) [@FireOlogist](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/FireOlogist)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 9:34pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/26 "2026-09-30T21:34:26Z")
> [@Astorre](#): > > if only subjective morality existed, it would amount to an absence of morality. Admitting that I am painting in broad strokes, yes, this is my basic position. I know you aren’t going as far as me, but I am saying we aren’t engaged in talk about morality if we ignore objective, in-the-world, moral facts. If we are doing ethics, or even politics, we don’t get to play epistomologist or ontologist and wonder how we know and if we have access to truth. We are now forced to fix truths, or we wallow in debate only (like epistemologists and ontologists do), and I think for no reason, to no practical end. > [@Astorre](#): > > Yet, settling on the idea that something is “objectively good” is not entirely ideal either. If we all accept the existence of an “objective” truth, the question arises: who exactly possesses it? Disputes would ensue Yes, but isn’t a dispute over “what is objectively true for us” a second question? First, two people have to see “there are things that are objectively morally wrong, always, because of the shape of the world and us in it.” They have to think there is something moral there to discover. Second, they can then argue over what those particular objective moral things and truths and laws may be. There is no use getting to this second question “what is morally true”, if you already answer the first question with “no, there is nothing that is just wrong, for all people, always.” > [@Astorre](#): > > [Because objective truths themselves are in dispute] I maintain that neither objective nor subjective morality is what we need. > > There is a useful term: “intersubjective truth”—or simply “intersubjectivity”—referring to a truth shared by a number of subjects. So you have me representing the subjective over here, and you, the subjective over there, and now third, the intersubjective, the shared world between us. And from the inter-subjective, we derive moral truths. This is three nodes to make the morality model. A “shared world” is _shared_ because of me and the other person, but this shared world doesn’t _exist_ because of me, or any person - that’s why I have to call it a “world”, and that is what adds the objectivity to the model of a morality. This third node, called inter-subjectivity, may serve the same function as the world does in an objective truth model. Holding that the inter-subjective, shared truth must now apply to all community members (by agreement or majority consensus in a shared-world/community), may serve the same objectifying, universalizing function for moral truth as objective truth does in my model. (I think you say this too further down in your post.) But it is the fact that it applies to all (the ‘all’ function, the universal function) that objectifies anything, not the ‘inter’ function. As far as I can tell, the “inter-subjective” in itself plays out more like the subjective, than it serves as a placeholder for the objective. It’s more of a re-vamped super-subject, as unmoved by objectivity as the subjective moralist (maybe less moved). Inter-subjectivity just forms a new constructed subject, an irresponsible, academic, collective version of private subjectivity; it just replaces the single subject with the amorphous and shapeshifting collective. And worse, under the umbrella of a collective, there is no need (or really justification) for any one person to ever take actual accountability for the goodness or badness of the collective’s laws and enforcements of those laws. Collectives don’t do things and suffer consequences - individuals have to do that. We are still turning away from facts in the world to form moral laws, just, instead of remaining locked alone in our heads, we lock ourselves in a hall, away from the world of individuals living lives on the streets. The irresponsibility of collectivization is the key challenge here. Responsibility is a key component to moral life. At least the lone subject who claims subjectively that “stealing property from the rich is good and just” can take responsibility for his actions, and be held accountable for the property at issue, and offer defenses of his claims of his goodness. But when we attempt to place responsibility in a collective - like a mob, or a cult, or a political party - no one need actually be there to be responsible for specific acts anymore. We have to resort to picking scapegoats and making examples out of one or a few as if that must cause the collective to change anything. So again, we aren’t doing morality anymore, just politics. Moral laws are replaced with efficacious policies, and individuals are replaced with ideological membership statuses, morality becomes politics and injustice remains just as ill-defined as when we started. * * * I think too often these discussions are too academic. We aren’t just justifying actions on paper, or looking for the logic of strings of assertions with the word “moral” or “objective” in them. We are justifying our actions in the world taken against other people, like arresting and jailing and judging a criminal, or killing a person, or failing to defend the innocent. Is it good to kill the burglar in your house, or is it bad - what is good to do, or what bad have I done? We may all agree that all human beings are equal, with rights to life and liberty. But does any agreement or disagreement matter once we see plainly for ourselves, in the world, objectively, for all persons, that equality, liberty and life is present, and no one and nothing gets to take any of this away without due process of legal adjudication? We don’t kill first and ask morality questions later; we are saying what is moral, to inform our next actual actions. We are holding truths to be self-evident truths, not stipulated agreements, or culturally situated sentiments. Self-evident just means objective. Does the fact that anyone disagrees that 12 + 12 = 24 matter to you at all? How about when you are buying two dozen eggs? Anyone, or any collective, or any God, who argues they are giving you two dozen eggs as they hand you 13 eggs is just wrong, or lying, or stealing. Objectively. If a moral law doesn’t reflect a similar objectivity, what is the point or even how is it possible, to say anything more? ---
**Author:** ![Scorpion](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/scorpion/32/875_2.png) [@Scorpion](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Scorpion)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 11:57pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/27 "2026-09-30T23:57:51Z")
> [@AmadeusD](#): > > Definitely agree with this, and I am pretty intimately aware of Harris and his views, but they eventually boil down to a species of incredulity at other views, rather than a grounding in science. You have to get off the ground for science to tell us anything, in a metaphysical sense. > > But yes, it would patently ridiculous to _not_ think the avenues towards physical health in humans is not desirable (i.e moral in this context). But that just doesn’t make it objective, and I find it misleading to take cases like this and say they have somehow come up with that. Good that we agree. Yes, there’s no specific reason why the author proposes this new outlook toward morality. He probably saw that all of the other theories were really good. Also true, physical health is what’s important in the end. That’s why we have to study the mind from a neuroscientific POV. It definitely doesn’t make things objective. It’s just not that subjective, like how (negative) utilitarianism is for some folk. ---
**Author:** ![Astorre](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/astorre/32/545_2.png) [@Astorre](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Astorre)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 3:03am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/28 "2026-10-01T03:03:48Z")
In my view, logic is not the most suitable tool for discussing morality. You mention a dozen eggs. Fair enough. But consider this: imagine we are in a computer game. To complete a quest, we need to bring a dozen eggs to a boss. You cannot progress until you bring exactly that dozen—no more, no less. If you were to transfer this task to reality, however, you could complete the quest by bringing just two eggs instead of a dozen. You would simply need to fill the gap with a compelling story—about how hard you tried, the tough times you’re facing, your pain, and so on. Or it could go the other way: you bring the coveted dozen, but the quest-giver takes a hundred eggs from you—simply because you have them and he is corrupt. Here is an old short film that illustrates (albeit very crudely) the powerlessness of logic in the face of humanity: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/XminlVhLma4/maxresdefault.jpg "Terminator Vs Jesus The Greatest Action Story Ever Told!") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XminlVhLma4) I simply wanted to demonstrate—though Hume did so brilliantly long before me—that an “ought” cannot be derived from an “is.” Ultimately, my position is this: morality exists as a genuine intersubjective phenomenon; ideologies temporarily stabilize it by lending it an appearance of objectivity; all such ideologies are finite; and claims to absolute objectivity are merely a way to avoid acknowledging that finitude. This approach requires neither metaphysical realism nor a surrender to pure subjectivism. Only one practical question remains: if the “initiated” perceive this impermanence and constructed nature while the majority does not, what responsibility do the initiated bear for maintaining or altering the prevailing ideology? History has seen various approaches here: some wanted to preserve the old, others sought to make adjustments together, and some simply wanted to tear everything down and start anew. * * * Current notions of good and evil are based on the prevailing premises of a specific community. Historically, these premises were stable enough that a single moral framework could suffice for centuries. Now, however, the pace of change is so rapid—and people have become so intermixed—that all our established truths can be re-evaluated in just a couple of years. The older generation struggles with this, and we do too, though we manage to cope. But I like today’s children. They are built to inhabit this world of the future. Everything moves fast for them, and they don’t dwell on anything for long. * * * I would like to add a few thoughts regarding the “is” vs. “ought” distinction. According to Hume, a valid deduction cannot introduce a new connective or concept in the conclusion that was not present in the premises. If your premises contain only facts about how the world is (ontology/description), you have no logical grounds to derive a rule about how to relate to that world or how to act (norm/prescription). Thus, a normative statement must contain something else besides “is.” Pursuing this line of analysis, the concept of “want” fits perfectly into that slot. The result is elegant: Ought = is + want Now, everything falls into place. Let’s return to the egg example: if the boss wants to preserve a living community, show mercy, or support someone in their pain (“want”), he ought to accept two eggs instead of twelve. This “ought” stems directly from his fundamental “want to be human.” Similarly, a demand for a bribe stems from a desire to live in prosperity, not from an algorithm. ---
**Author:** ![Scorpion](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/scorpion/32/875_2.png) [@Scorpion](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Scorpion)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 10:00am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/29 "2026-10-01T10:00:51Z")
@Lewis Moore’s naturalistic fallacy 🥲 @Banno Really insightful comments about objective morality. 🫠 Relativism and subjectivism then but our societies operate under a different assumption. Anyone want to start a new thread? A community of peaceful folk don’t reason to the detente they inhabit. If there’s something that keeps them smiling at each other and hugging each other it’s not rationality. If it were then the situation would instantly be a repetition of history, when groups managed to live in harmony and tranquility. ---
**Author:** ![FireOlogist](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/fireologist/32/597_2.png) [@FireOlogist](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/FireOlogist)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 5:04pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/30 "2026-10-01T17:04:59Z")
> [@Astorre](#): > > the powerlessness of logic We philosophers spend a lot time, considering everything, ending up with nothing. > [@Astorre](#): > > You would simply need to fill the gap with a compelling story But is that always the case? Do you truly believe there is no truth, or truly know, you know nothing? We have been pretending we are discovering the truth of what is, when we are really just manufacturing questions, answering them with fictions, and not realizing our questions had nothing to do with the gap we inquired into, just like our answers (fictions) have nothing to do with the gap they are trying to fill? > [@Astorre](#): > > But consider this: imagine we are in a computer game. To complete a quest, we need to bring a dozen eggs to a boss. You cannot progress until you bring exactly that dozen—no more, no less. If you were to transfer this task to reality, however, you could complete the quest by bringing just two eggs instead of a dozen. You would simply need to fill the gap with a compelling story—about how hard you tried, the tough times you’re facing, your pain, and so on. Or it could go the other way: you bring the coveted dozen, but the quest-giver takes a hundred eggs from you—simply because you have them and he is corrupt. I see this as just as much of a proof of truth as it is a proof of story-telling. You can’t complete the quest for a dozen with only two eggs if your story isn’t any good - not in reality. Any story won’t do. A “compelling” story is your only hope. But compelling what? How do you compel the physical world with fictions? Who gets moved and who is doing the moving of what? In order for there to be a gap, you need solid fixed ground separated by this gap. We don’t notice gaps otherwise. Everything and anything we say butts up against the truth that doesn’t ask us, or need us, to say anything. How can I say this at all, if there is no good truth spoken of? Most of our stories are inadequate, and the world is full of fictions believed to be truth. But only the fact of the truth allows me to notice this. If me calling two eggs as good as a dozen and you calling a dozen no good without a hundred eggs creates an unbridgeable gap that is only ever addressed by fictions, how is “egg” not a fiction in the first place? Why does someone ask for anything at all, be it a dozen eggs or a good story? Egg had to be there in truth to build up the “what is a dozen” controversy. How could you make this point about gap-filling stories to me, unless we stood together on the same ground? There is always a chicken. Once you admit, “well yes, we have to both accept eggs as true in order to get the controversy and the space for gap-filling stories to happen at all”, you’ve admitted “there is truth.” End of story telling. Truth and illusion is not a chicken chasing an egg to be the first. Illusions and gaps have to be secondary to truth. We _are_ the apparatus to build questions (see gaps), to codify them in words and reasons, to prove with logic and real-world experiment… but there is no truth in the first place? Nothing is ever actually said? To me, language itself is proof of our possession of the truth. We could not have ever developed a single word of language if we were not bridging gaps with solid walkways, once in a while. The gaps only exist between persons; and the world and it’s truth, shareable equally in persons, is the only bridge. We only move past one sentence to the next because something of this sentence points to something you can see for yourself, without the sentence. We understand each other by understanding something of our world. This is something. This is not nothing anymore. If our stories are fictions, then our fictions exist, and what exists grounds the truth, so there is truth. We cannot escape the truth. It’s not to say that we should now judge this one true and that one false, and call her good and him bad, or always trust the science, or never trust the science - it’s just to say that we CAN judge this one true and that one false, we CAN say “that is bad” and be right. We aren’t wasting our time. So as applied to morality, why did you say “he is corrupt”? You needed “corrupt” to be a real thing in the world to draw your distinction, and I needed to know of corruption in the world to move from that sentence to your next and see the point you were making. If the existence of corruption was another fiction, you could not make your point. How did you distinguish corruption form anything else? Corruption is where a good thing is infected with decay and self-defeat. You need the existing, true, known, real, good thing, _before_ there is the possibility of its corruption. We are willing to acknowledge the presence of corruption, but so timid to even speak of the good and the true. Why isn’t “corruption” just as unsatisfactory a fiction as is “truth” or “is good”? What gap do we hide with the story of how “all is just story-telling?” ---
**Author:** ![Astorre](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/astorre/32/545_2.png) [@Astorre](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Astorre)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 5:39pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/31 "2026-10-01T17:39:07Z")
Well, let’s take things in order. First, I do think that truth actually exists—or rather, I allow for the possibility. But even if it does exist as an ontological or physical fact, that doesn’t mean it necessarily exists inside anyone’s head. It might, or it might not. I would say that what exists in our minds is a _conception_ of truth (of one kind or another). Secondly, you know what corruption is, and I know the word (though, to be honest, the modern concept carries a heavy emotional charge). Why do we know this word? Because someone coined it, named it, and imbued it with a connotation of acting against the common good—that vile thing, corruption. And both you and I grew up in a context where the word carries that specific connotation. In other words, it is a construct—something intersubjectively accepted as “bad.” But what about societies where there is no distinction between public and private interests? Can corruption—defined by that distinction—exist there? Imagine a settlement made up of a single clan. Can corruption exist there if the father and the supreme authority are one and the same person, and everyone lives side-by-side in a state of mutual interdependence? If any sort of partiality occurs there, it certainly isn’t called “corruption.” Here is another personal example: while in a remote village in an Asian country, I was receiving a government service. A local resident insisted that I reward the official providing the service. When I objected, he replied: “For you, that’s a bribe; for us, it’s an expression of gratitude!” I realize that last example might seem alien to Western sensibilities. I hope the reader is wise enough not to travel to that country brandishing tomahawks, intent on teaching the locals how to live properly. Let me be frank with you. Deep down, I am an idealist. It pains me to see violence inflicted upon the weak, and it hurts to see my own notions of beauty or the good disregarded. But it is even more painful to discover that all these people get along perfectly well without me and my “truths”—that they have no need for me or what I hold to be true. Yet they are happy. Sometimes, they are so happy that one can’t help but envy them. So, please don’t be angry with me for questioning the “objectivity” of morality. If you wish, I won’t say another word about it. * * * Below, I will publish a poem I once wrote while finding myself in a different culture, lost in a melancholy reflection on an egg… **To a Citizen of Babylon** ​Warming up by the core of the reactor, Charged up high by an electric arc, Filled with blind, stubborn faith in your Emperor, You will never know someone’s out in the dark. ​You won’t credit that anyone’s out there, Slightly more spiritual, maybe, than you— Just as simple and kind, living somewhere, Happy just being themselves in their view. ​And that hatred is not what inspires them— Never learn it, nor grasp the full extent, Never feel that cold certainty inside you: They just don’t care about you in the end. ​So make haste, hurry back to the reactor, Plug the kids in, recharge them tonight. You have read so much more of this chapter Than you ever were meant to, by right. The translation was done by AI. ---
**Author:** ![Johnathanrs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Johnathanrs](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Johnathanrs)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 6:21pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/32 "2026-10-01T18:21:47Z")
(I’ll keep things focused on from a materialism perspective.) From a community-first perspective, morality isn’t an abstract opinion floating in space. It emerges as an objective truth within a specific society. Take the Amish, for example. When you belong to their community, you agree to their rules on proper living. Within that congregation, those rules aren’t just opinions, they function as established facts governing daily life. The same rule applies to any nation and its legal system, their governing laws set an objective standard for that society, even when outsiders morally object to them. As a member of a active community, its moral code acts as an objective framework. If you are outside of it, that same code can feel entirely subjective. When we look at morality in practice, we also have to account for human biology and how society cares for its most vulnerable. Neuroscience clearly documents that brain damage or neurological conditions can radically alter a person’s personality, character, and moral capacity. As a compassionate society operating as a welfare state, we recognize that when an individual loses their cognitive facilities, they do not lose their fundamental human value. Our collective decision to care for people with severe mental disabilities proves that society’s moral duty isn’t built on cold logic or intellectual debates–it is an objective obligation grounded in empathy and mutual care. You also cannot talk about morality without treating theology as a cornerstone. For billions of people, ethical codes and entire ways of life flow directly from a spiritual foundation. Modern legal traditions–borrowing heavily from Anglo-Saxon and Roman roots–guarantee religious and spiritual freedom, provided one’s practice does not infringe upon the rights of others. Concepts like _Jus ad bellum_ (the justice of resorting to war) or humanitarian intervention are often invoked to stop physical atrocities. Yet, from a theological viewpoint, forcing external moral standards on a community can also inflict spiritual atrocities by disrupting their way of life and foundational beliefs. ​When you look across culture, history, and theology, morality reveals itself as something dynamic. Morality is an emergent truth born from community agreements, legal traditions, and theological foundations. It gives communities their rules for living, sets the boundaries for legal rights, and defines our compassionate duty to protect every human being–regardless of their state of being. Hopefully this helps. ---
**Author:** ![Johnnywas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/22d042/32.png) [@Johnnywas](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Johnnywas)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 6:53pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/33 "2026-10-01T18:53:15Z")
I dont think that morality is objective. But there are things we can say about human flourishing and social arrangements. What works and what does not. There are better and worse ways of solving problems including social problems. The solutions are not given to us but nor are they arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![AmadeusD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f9ae1b/32.png) [@AmadeusD](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/AmadeusD)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 7:22pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/34 "2026-10-01T19:22:50Z")
> [@Astorre](#): > > if only subjective morality existed, it would amount to an absence of morality. Patently untrue. Whether or not objective morality exists, we all enact moral beliefs. If morality rests on beliefs, that is still morality. You are instantiating a definition that _rules out_ other options. That is disingenuous, and I am surprised by that, to be honest. The religious among us can make sense of this, because their _worldview_ includes that distinction and definition. Non-religious people need to grapple with what actually happens - which is peopl enacting their moral beliefs, whether objective or not. > [@FireOlogist](#): > > We are now forced to fix truths This is pretty incoherent in it’s context. If we’re doing politics, we are absolutely open to play epistemologists etc… but even accepting that, in this scenario we are _choosing options._ Not accepting facts. You’re right that this is required to remove from debate, and that seems to be what actually happens in the world. Then again, in politics, it comes to voting, generally. Argumentation/debate is really only a small part of the “facts” of policy, as it were. > [@FireOlogist](#): > > There is no use getting to this second question “what is morally true”, if you already answer the first question with “no, there is nothing that is just wrong, for all people, always.” Bang on, and I think this is the leap-frog even many anti-realists about morality make. But I think it’s deeper - if you answer the first question in the negative (as above), then the second question doesn’t even make sense (i presume this is baked into your statement, I’m just being direct). If you cannot prove to yourself that your moral beliefs are object, you have absolutely no warrant to accept anyone else’s claim for the same. I have never seen someone do this (you can ignore this, if you like because its now my view, not just discussing your comments). Had I seen someone prove to themselves that their moral beliefs were objective, I would have had to, essentially by a psycho-logical force, accept that I must do the same for myself. So, you can tell that the second question cannot (in good faith, say) be approached by anyone who cannot demostrably show that their own beliefs are _objective._ I don’t thkn that possible. > [@FireOlogist](#): > > A “shared world” is _shared_ because of me and the other person, but this shared world doesn’t _exist_ because of me, or any person - that’s why I have to call it a “world”, and that is what adds the objectivity to the model of a morality. Could you maybe parse tihs a little more finely? I’m seeing the “..and that is what…” as a total, unabashed non sequitur here. > [@FireOlogist](#): > > Holding that the inter-subjective, shared truth must now apply to all community members That is a form of traditionalism. Not objective morality. If the community accepts _x, y and z_ moral propositions and enforces them, that could well be entirely arbitrary (or, semi-so). What’s being appealed to is stacks of subjective thought. > [@FireOlogist](#): > > But it is the fact that it applies to all (the ‘all’ function, the universal function) that objectifies anything, not the ‘inter’ function. This seems obviously wrong. IFF the “all” function is _undeniable in all places and times_ then there’s a pretty damn good argument you’ve got that right. But that is _clearly_ not true for almost any statement a human could make, and the ones that (we would hope) _all humans_ agree with are still of that category… because all humans agree with them. Not because they are somehow prior to human reason, and just waiting for discovery. There are no moral facts of that kind. So, this all said: I could be getting you entirely wrong. Are you saying all of this in service of an “objective” which merely captures the _nature_ of human belief, as opposed to the _basis_ for it? If so, I agree: there are moral truths. But they are _only_ objective insofar as we can point around us, in the world, and note that _x_ is universally derided as “wrong”. But that doesn’t get us further than again, a stack of subjective thought woven into a pretty robust and essentially inescapable _fact about hte world_ rather than a fact about the content of any given moral statement. > [@FireOlogist](#): > > As far as I can tell, the “inter-subjective” in itself plays out more like the subjective, than it serves as a placeholder for the objective. 100% I agree with this, and I think we’re probably seeing the same pitfall in the attempt for inter-subjectivity to amount to an inescapable morality (it doesn’t seem to be anything more than social policy to me, varying across time and place…). The issue for me, is that I understand arguments for an objective morality to be doing the same thing, but hiding the ball. That’s why I ask around clarifying whether you’re talking metaphysically objective, or observationally objective (as in, “Yes, you objectively were in the carpark because we have footage of it”). > [@FireOlogist](#): > > But when we attempt to place responsibility in a collective - like a mob, or a cult, or a political party - no one need actually be there to be responsible for specific acts anymore. Yes. And this is probably hte key issue with trying to govern millions of people from effectively a pulpit. Still, a failure to reach the goals we set for governance doesn’t seem to be an argument about morality. > [@FireOlogist](#): > > Moral laws I want to know what these are and from where they derive. No one has offered anything for this question beyond divine command, from what I’ve seen across the centuries. > [@FireOlogist](#): > > If a moral law doesn’t reflect a similar objectivity, what is the point or even how is it possible, to say anything more? I’m not quite sure what this objection amounts to, but from what _I do_ glean, I’d say well, they don’t reflect a similar objectivity. They never have. Never will. And yet, we say plenty, and do plenty, about our moral _beliefs._ I don’t see the issue beyond that responsibility pitfall we both note above. ---
**Author:** ![180Proof](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/180proof/32/1100_2.png) [@180Proof](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/180Proof)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 7:36pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/35 "2026-10-01T19:36:02Z")
> [@Johnnywas](#): > > What works and what does not How is this not objective? ---
**Author:** ![Johnnywas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/22d042/32.png) [@Johnnywas](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Johnnywas)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 7:57pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/36 "2026-10-01T19:57:49Z")
Because although the solutions are not arbitrary they are not given to us as a code, they are dependent on circumstance and may contain conficts. We use reason to access them. ---
**Author:** ![FireOlogist](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/fireologist/32/597_2.png) [@FireOlogist](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/FireOlogist)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 8:04pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/37 "2026-10-01T20:04:32Z")
> [@Astorre](#): > > that truth actually exists—or rather, I allow for the possibility. But even if it does exist as an ontological or physical fact, that doesn’t mean it necessarily exists inside anyone’s head. It might, or it might not. I agree 100%. I happen to think the possibility of truth and the possibility of knowing the truth is a game-changer, that makes conversation meaningful (as opposed to merely accidentally useful). > [@Astorre](#): > > I would say that what exists in our minds is a _conception_ of truth (of one kind or another). Only if our conception corresponds with that which it is a conception _of_, can we say we know the truth. This correspondence must be possible for knowing the truth to be possible. > [@Astorre](#): > > both you and I grew up in a context That context, I call, reality. The objective world. We grew up in different, but similarly real, places. > [@Astorre](#): > > where the word [corrupt] carries that specific connotation. In other words, it is a construct The _word_ “corruption” is constructed to point out something distinct in the context. The word is the construction. But what are we naming? Something in our heads alone, where the construction project toils? Or is it also something outside both of our heads, the raw material, that informs the construction project? I think we don’t connect my head with your head around the concept “corruption” unless there is world of things to attach our now shared meaning to. The truth is the marrying of the construct with the world, for sake of sharing with other people. Sometimes the marriage is invalid. Other times the marriage was forced and falls apart. But sometimes, it is possible, and we can hope and work for, an actual marriage - where two know the one truth between them. > [@Astorre](#): > > “For you, that’s a bribe; for us, it’s an expression of gratitude!” You are comparing contexts. You aren’t emptying the word (text) “corruption” of its more fixed meaning. It has to already be true that it is _not_ corruption to express and receive gratitude before this story of yours can make sense. Because in one society giving money to a government official is one concrete act, and in another society giving the same money to the same government official is a different concrete act - we cannot say “so ‘corruption’ is a hollow construction”; we are saying that the two different societies, in the world objectively, create two different, concrete contexts for the exchange of money with government officials. The truth of “corruption” and what corruption _is_ doesn’t change at all, and neither should our hope for knowing “corruption is always bad”. > [@Astorre](#): > > to see violence inflicted upon the weak…to discover that all these people get along perfectly well For your story to make sense, people have to be happy to be victimized. But I don’t think that is what you mean. If you learn to live with victimization, it’s doesn’t make victimization happiness producing; instead, if you learn to live with victimization, you are not a victim anymore. It doesn’t become true that “victimization is good.” It becomes an example of someone you yourself perceived as a victim but you were wrong, or an example of a person who learned that "just because they take from me and inflict suffering on me, all I need to be happy comes from elsewhere, and in those times and places, while and where I am happy, they aren’t victimizing me. Is an athlete who spends hours, days and years sweating, breaking, and strengthening to get stronger and faster merely suffering? That cannot be true when the athlete is nearly broken completely, yet gets up and tries again. > [@Astorre](#): > > Filled with blind, stubborn faith in your Emperor, > You will never know someone’s out in the dark. Science in a poem - love it. Something has to fix and shine on as stubborn, to discern darkness. We don’t see the darkness. We have to close our eyes, or extinguish the light, to know it. > [@Astorre](#): > > So, please don’t be angry with me for questioning the “objectivity” of morality. I can just as readily ask you to please not be angry with me for questioning the function of morality absent any belief that we can know objective moral truth. ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 9:06pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/38 "2026-10-01T21:06:18Z")
> [@Petrus\_Roma](#): > > At some point here you switch from describing what _is_ to saying what _matters_. Where exactly does that switch happen, and what justifies it? Excellent. This is the missing piece, that what is the case does not determine what ought be the case. In failing to recognise this, most scientistic accounts of ethics simply fail to address what is at issue. The switch isn’t something that can be located within the “is” statements at all — that’s precisely the point. Consider Anscombe’s shopping list analogy: a shopping list and a receipt can list the very same items, but one is what you wanted and the other is what you’ve got. The difference isn’t in content but in intent — one guides your actions, the other describes them. The move from receipt to list, from is to ought, happens when you change your attitude toward the world rather than your description of it — and that’s not just an issue of observations or deduction. So there’s no single logical step, buried somewhere in a scientistic account, where you can point and say “there, an ought was validly derived.” If an argument ends in an ought, there has to be a point at which that ought is introduced, and whatever is doing that work, the “fundamental purpose”, the “compelling force”, is itself the source of the ought, not some further “is”. Asking what justifies the switch is really asking what justifies adopting an attitude or a want, and that’s not a matter of entailment from facts. This is the point made via direction of fit: ethical statements work by changing the world to match what we say, where descriptive statements work by changing what we say to match the world. Because these run in opposite directions, there’s no fit-preserving path from one to the other — the “switch” is a change in orientation, not a step in an argument. Formally, this also comes up in discussing Gillian Russell’s barrier to entailment: to even set up descriptive sentences as “fixed” and normative ones as “fragile” (i.e., to say descriptive claims survive switching to any ought-system while normative ones don’t) already presumes the is/ought distinction rather than deriving it. So even the most careful formal attempts to pin down “where” the switch occurs end up assuming the distinction as a starting point rather than exhibiting the exact mechanism or justification for it. So, to answer directly: there is no deductive point of transition that could count as a justification. The switch happens wherever someone’s attitude, want, or purpose gets inserted — and that insertion is a change in the direction of fit, not a licensed step in reasoning. Scientistic accounts of ethics fail exactly because they try to locate the ought within the fixed description instead of recognising that it enters as something else entirely. ---
**Author:** ![FireOlogist](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/fireologist/32/597_2.png) [@FireOlogist](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/FireOlogist)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 10:36pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/39 "2026-10-01T22:36:35Z")
> [@AmadeusD](#): > > I think we’re probably seeing the same pitfall in the attempt for inter-subjectivity to amount to an inescapable morality (it doesn’t seem to be anything more than social policy to me, varying across time and place…). I agree. An inter-subjective moral law making system, is better described as a system of highly contextualized stipulations to build political policy. > [@AmadeusD](#): > > That’s why I ask around clarifying whether you’re talking metaphysically objective, or observationally objective (as in, “Yes, you objectively were in the carpark because we have footage of it”). I think the answer is metaphysically objective, but let me back up. Morality is a practical thing. To be a moral creature, to determine the morality of specific behavior, we need to accept as playing pieces the following things: 1. **Multiple people** sharing **one, same reality**. 2. Each person is a **free** , deliberating, actor in our shared world. 3. **Law** , that recognizes an objective **difference between good and bad** , **written** (or otherwise held over the whole community equally) to guide the behavior of free agents in the one world. Epistemologists and ontologists that might want to question 1, have to wait their turn, because depending on their conclusions, they might eliminate the possibility of morality. We all need to see they same bombers and the same people being killed by bombs to develop any justice at all in such a situation. Similarly, people who might reject free will have to wait their turn as well, because if there is no freedom, there can be no responsible moral agent, accountable to the law for actions taken. Without the ability to take responsibility for one’s own free actions, it is incoherent to hold anyone morally accountable for the consequences of their actions. But I think we all basically agree with that. The question is, can we make a functioning, practical, moral system if the law, and if notions of good and bad, are not or cannot be discerned from the world, but can only be constructed by the actor? My answer is no. I offer a purely practical rhetorical question to show why I believe there needs to be some objectively true component to our laws and notions of good and bad. Why would I ever reject my subjective, personal desires and instead follow a law, if that law was itself based on other people’s subjective personal desires? It’s just that simple. Morality is practical. Saying “thou shalt not rape and murder” is a moral law. If we tell ourselves that “well, it’s not absolutely true, that sometimes murder is good and rape can be contextualized to be the right thing to do”, then why would anyone who felt like murdering or raping be bothered that someone else didn’t understand their subjective reasoning? I’m saying the reason people don’t murder when they really want to murder based on the law “it is wrong to murder” is not because they think “well they are smart people and most of them agree, so I guess I better not murder.” It’s because they think “I know murder is wrong - I agree this is an objective fact.” We are talking about free, intelligent, capable adults. I know there are psychological arguments about why people please crowds and follow laws like adolescents, or other arguments that people are ignorant or young and follow authority blindly. I am not talking about those people or situations or applications of laws. I am saying, if you want to get a bunch of adults to agree to a law that “Murder is wrong, and murderers will be punished, so if I or any of you murder, I or you will be dealt with according to the law” - if this is the adult society, it will only work if all of the people agree that law is immutable. No adult is agreeing that I can be viewed as immoral and bad and my behavior curtailed according to a law that is just another viewpoint - not in the heat of the moment when you really want to murder, when you disagree the law is objectively true. The moral system just won’t work. So we still have to deal with - where do we discover these objective moral facts to make immutable laws from, and the is/ought divide, but for now, all I am saying is, if you think the ought side is the entire universe of morality, you can take your universe and go home whenever I disagree, just as I can take mine and go home whenever you disagree, because our two universes don’t overlap ever if there is nothing objective about them. Last point of clarification. This doesn’t mean we can’t build systems around subjectivity. It’s just that, to me, these are more aptly called political systems, and purely mechanical systems, and need not involve moral good and moral bad terms. It is bad to drive on the wrong side of the road, not because of any metaphysics around good and bad, but because of the car crashes. Someone may think car crashes are great, or good. Someone else might think they are bad. Regardless, we make a law making a “right side of the road” and enough agree to make that the law, and agree to punish those who disobey… but none of that is morality. A bad driver isn’t necessarily a bad person, and without moral objectivity, there is no such thing as a bad person anyway. ---
**Author:** ![FireOlogist](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/fireologist/32/597_2.png) [@FireOlogist](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/FireOlogist)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2026, 11:05pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317/40 "2026-10-01T23:05:26Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > there is no deductive point of transition that could count as a justification. The switch happens wherever someone’s attitude, want, or purpose gets inserted — and that insertion is a change in the direction of fit, not a licensed step in reasoning. > [@Banno](#): > > ethical statements work by changing the world to match what we say, where descriptive statements work by changing what we say to match the world. Because these run in opposite directions, there’s no fit-preserving path from one to the other — the “switch” is a change in orientation, not a step in an argument. Such great clarity. So I ask, if ‘what ought to be’ can only be sourced to a subject, isn’t any attempt to debate moral judgments like they could be science futile? Basically, why bother playing scientist about subjective feelings and opinions? It can never be true that “murder is wrong”; it can only be true that “I think this particular killing was wrong” which is not something anyone can argue against or defend without re-introducing some world-based, more objective notion of “wrong”. I mean people do argue ethics like science. But people also argue about the shape of the earth like that is science too. [Previous page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317.md?page=1) [Next page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/can-morality-be-objective/3317.md?page=3)