Can morality be objective?

Ethics
41

It can also be true that “we think this particular type of killing is wrong”. That agreement is, to use your phrasing, a "world-based notion of wrong”.

Ethics inherently involves how we are to deal with each other. It is our common ground. It is an ongoing discourse as to what we ought do. Your opinion is a part of that discourse.

What we have is a discussion concerning what we ought to do. Now how things are, or science, if you prefer, informs what we ought to do; but it doesn’t determine it.

Ethics is a dynamic, discursive conversation that interacts directly with what we do, and within which what you think we should do is for you the most important piece, but not the whole.

Another dimension: Ethics is not algorithmic. Ethics is far too complicated to have an algorithmic solution, moral decisions cannot be decided in an algorithmic fashion - they are far too complex. Just as no rule can accommodate the definition of ‘game’, no rules could cover the all possible situations we might call ‘moral’ .

Both consequentialism and deontology seek an algorithmic approach to ethics, as if such things were calculable. The enormous complexity of even the most simple decisions weighs heavily against such an approach. Treating a rule as absolute is giving succour to the devil, who will delight in inventing traps in which following the rule leads to cruelty.

Virtue ethics may be the better fit, precisely because it resists algorithmic treatment.
Heuristics are a central part of virtue ethics, their use following more directly there than from either consequentialism or deontology. The point of virtue ethics was to avoid rules, but along with Anscombe, to treat ethics as closer to conceptual analysis. Virtue ethics better suits ethical problem solving once one agrees moral issues are solved "heuristically, not algorithmically.

Even so no criteria, even in virtue ethics or capability frameworks, that will work in all cases for all questions; and yet we have to do the evaluation, so we use an iterative process, in which each iteration changes the rule being iterated. So the list of virtues and the list of capabilities changes over time. This leaves the meta-question “What is the way we settle these matters?” open, answered only reflexively: “that’s part of these matters”.

But “not algorithmic” does not mean “not rational”. Buridan’s Ass shows that sometimes an arbitrary choice can still be rational. Buridan’s Ass will die unless it makes an arbitrary decision, and hence sometimes it is rational to make arbitrary choices. The alternative to algorithms is not relativism but better decision-making and self-cultivation. The only viable response is to seek to make good decisions; to make oneself a better person.

What ethics is fundamentally about is action, not passive rule-following or experience. Ethics is fundamentally about how one relates to others, how one acts within a community.

Ethics resists algorithmic/rule-based treatment because of the complexity and variety of situations; virtue ethics is favoured as better suited to this non-algorithmic character; but even virtue-based criteria, lists of virtues and capabilities, are themselves revisable through an iterative, non-foundational process rather than fixed by a further algorithm.

Not what folk want. They want a rule. The engineers will be especially miffed. Tough. Learn to adult. “I think this particular killing was wrong” is a good place to start.

2 Likes
42

I appreciate the context you gave this, but this is patently not rhetoric. It is a real, practical question which underlies many theories of ethics and indeed probably informs the vast majority of actual ethical behaviour. We don’t have mechanisms to read our behaviour against some unchanging, timeless code of practice. We never have, and we never will: we are creatures as much out of, as formed by, our environment. Our environment isn’t a moral one. We are the moral spanner in the works of what you’re calling “the world”. And so…

This cannot be the case, as best I can discern, even from your descriptions of what you take morality to be. You’ve not given anything on which it rests, other than looking out at the world and describing how things are actually done. No?

Generally, because we have actual laws, rather than made-up moral ones. The consequence outweighs the potential material benefit (in this case, the desired sex act) of “stick to your guns” kind of thinking. And also, plenty of people simply don’t care about that, anyway, and continue raping people or killing people. They think they are morally correct. The only thing we can point out to argue with them is “well, pretty much everyone else disagrees in such a way that we, the state, can kill you, and no one will (not quite, but I’m sure hte point lands anyway) debate it”.

Further, there are societies in which rape is fully embraced. Can you square that? If there is some actual truth to the prop “Rape is wrong” then wherefore do some societies, in aggregate disagree with this?

Again, my intuition is “rape is wrong” to the point of endangering myself to enforce it. That just means I’m passionate about my belief that rape is wrong. The is doesn’t illuminate an ought. @Banno while on a different wavelength, has aptly described why this is obviously true above.

As noted above, this is clearly untrue in plenty of cases, some covering 100s of millions of people on this planet. There isn’t any support for this argument, which is an observational one so far - I’m looking for why you think it’s objective. Not why you can’t understand other people’s behaviour without that claim.

But this is misguided. Killing (even what amounts to murder) is often not couched in those terms, legally or otherwise. The Alaskan Avenger is one example. Most people will agree, this man is morally correct in murdering several other humans. Rape is obviously a much harder one to parse, and as I said, I don’t think rape can be acceptable. But that’s what I think. I have no way of grounding this is something inarguable. I’ll just be incredulous at those arguments (as i am, every time I hear radical religious try to justify it).

But this is what some people approach the Law as, and it does work. I’m not quite sure you’re understanding that a few of the key elements in the world you seem to be pointing to simply are not there (or, in the alternate if I am wrong: There are plenty of elements in the world which provide clear evidence against certain claims, but aren’t being dealt with).

This is, in fact, the first thing we should have been dealing with. I’d like an answer to it, because without that, the rest of it simply doesn’t fall out. It just is what you think of things (and again, my thinking is not even far from yours).

Well, I can understand this argument: the systems we call moral may not in fact, be systems of morality in the strict sense. I can get on with that. But then, i’m left saying “well, this is what humans do to deal with interpersonal conflict and resolution”.

I can’t understnad morality to be anything else, whether subjectively- or objectively-derived. I’m glad you agree, though, that we construct such systems around subjective visions of justice.

This is, i am really, really trying to be polite about it, silly. A person is a bad person if someone thinks they are. It’s just that hte fact only exists inside the person’s mind who thought it.
The Law arbitrates these thoughts. If enough people think the same thing, then the Law can raise what would ordinarily just be an opinion, to something we need for society to cohere.

I just don’t see a gap, I guess. I don’t need objectivity to get on with things. The statement “rape is wrong” seems to actually, directly, and without much controversy, just simply describe the state of collective opinion in a place and time.

Other than neuroscience, yes, I think so (i know this wasn’t aimed at me, but I’m enjoying your posts).

Thank you, mate. As Fireologist said, great clarity.

1 Like
43

image
image1638×2048 223 KB

3 Likes
44

That is very interesting. Let’s consider another example.

You often use the word “triangulation” (in a philosophical sense); I am familiar with the term from my military service—specifically, pinpointing the location of a radio signal on a map by taking measurements from three different points. Hearing you use the word, I set aside my own experience and thought of it as a measurement method—locating a position in a military context, or, philosophically, perhaps a way of arriving at knowledge by viewing something from three initial axioms. Something along those lines, anyway.

IT specialists or mathematicians likely know the term from their respective fields as well.

Does triangulation exist objectively? As long as we use it as a method—yes. It exists objectively as a concept and as an idea.

But take an isolated tribe, for instance. I doubt that triangulation exists there as a method, a concept, or even a form of investigative activity.

Now, the question arises: does this triangulation exist for everyone? In a sense, it does, because we live in a world where such a construct exists. But is it essential for us to know it? After all, there are other ways to measure things—including methods yet to be discovered. An inquisitive mind, unaware of triangulation, might invent a completely different method that is even more accurate.

Let’s return to the subject of corruption. It is possible that our understanding of this concept—including its emotional component and what strikes us as its objective reality—is fundamentally inaccessible to others; they might not be able to understand, conceptualize, or even distinguish it. Could society have taken a different developmental path—one where corruption, as a distinct concept, simply did not exist? We do not know, just as we cannot say “no” with certainty.

Yesterday, while reflecting on all this, a thought occurred to me. The very idea of ​​objective truth—and the notion that the human mind can attain it—is not an unalloyed good. On one hand, this drive toward truth yields many practically important consequences. On the other, it makes us unhappy. And not merely in the Schopenhauerian sense—unhappy due to the sheer “will to live.” This drive also causes misery when, holding certain views on truth established within our own group, we feel a compulsion to share them with the world; when we see that the world couldn’t care less, we are all too ready to start a war. I conclude, then, that the drive to possess objective truth is a double-edged sword—practically both beneficial and harmful.

But is my assertion above actually objective? (Let’s examine the premises, just as you like.) It might be, or it might not. It is enough for me to convince many people of this judgment, and it will become intersubjective. The greater their numbers, the more weight my position carries. That is precisely how it works with any ideology—communism, socialism, Nazism, or liberalism.

The other day, I was walking down the street and saw a “gang” of boys riding pink bicycles, off on an adventure. Apparently, pink is in vogue among boys these days… Yet, I don’t think it’s right to approach them and lecture them that pink is a “girl’s color.” They couldn’t care less what I think. I felt the same way in my own youth when I was growing a beard and elderly women would tell me, “That’s not how it should be; you’re young—don’t grow a beard.”

1 Like
45

Yes, I’m not disagreeing with much of the positive things you and others say, but I think we are not acknowledging some important distinctions that make moral evaluation possible.

These are three different questions: what is rape; is rape good or bad; and did he rape/do evil to her?

We can objectify (universalize, fix) and truly know what rape is. And we can objectify and truly know that rape is wrong/bad/evil. The grayness comes in the application of these objectified truths, when we must decide “was this an instance of rape?” That can be gray all day.

But people often seem to mistake the fact of this gray area where we are not sure if the rubber meets the road, as showing we never truly knew whether the rubber is soft and the road is hard. That just reintroduces moving goal-posts to an already difficult task of making a moral judgment.

We need acknowledge this phrase full stop. This is exactly what I mean by: “objective reality informs what we ought to do.”

Are we acknowledging this objectifiable, what is/how-things-are, component to a moral system of decision-making, or not?

There is another important component to any practical consideration of morality that is often not addressed, and that is: this isn’t just about my determination of the goodness of my decisions, and my judgment of me becoming a better person. Living together in a moral universe means you get to judge me and my decision as good or not too. I get to say to the rapist “you are doing evil; stop it, or I will stop you.” (more objectification)

When we set ourselves up to share a moral universe, we are each subjecting ourselves to our moral laws. We are subsuming private, subjective judgment to public scrutiny, AND public consequences. We aren’t just figuring out whether we can say absolutely that “murder is bad”. We are also deciding whether “he is a murderer”, AND further, we are punishing or forcibly stopping bad behavior with “he goes to jail” or “he is told to apologize, repent and make amends.”

We don’t just say “you go to jail because there is this law the collective agreed upon that says ‘murderers go to jail’.” We say “there is a moral fact that ‘murder is bad’, and so we made a criminal law that says ‘murderers go to jail’.” At that point, subjective conclusions and deliberations and dynamics don’t play any role anymore - we have objectified what murder is, and objectified “murder is bad” and locked someone behind concrete and steel because they did murder.

I don’t think any of us should be willing to subsume ourselves to such a system if that system makes no recourse to objective facts about the world, applicable to judges, juries and all of us equally, including objective determinations about what is good and bad.

Maybe it is hard to find one moral fact. Maybe it is hard to know one objective truth. But it is impractical to make every situational determination a whole-cloth sui generis moment for deliberation of everything. And it will always lead to injustice and oppression (which I think are always bad).

I agree. Saying that there is objective truth, and saying that based on this objective truth we can identify objectively good moral facts, isn’t making ourselves passive slaves to rules. To be a free, adult member of moral community, each adult has to be pope, or priest, or God, or supreme court justice/senator/president, all in one.

The rules can be revised as we learn more. Objective truth is aspirational.

But it seems pretentious to make any rules or systems that are meant to apply to whole universes (whole communities) of people under the belief that the rules themselves are not and cannot truly be universal, or that universals themselves aren’t essential to moral judgment.

I think most people who disagree are more leery of the abuses powerful people can make out of objective truth and objective moral truth. But that’s abuses by powerful people; it’s not a practical, functional re-shaping of an ethical system. We still only can tell the powerful can make abuse of absolutism, because “abuse is absolutely wrong”. Ethical systems, because they involve what we do in the world, must address/confront/incorporate objectively bad doings in the world, or why bother at all?

Nietzsche was the first to say it out loud with the notion “Beyond Good and Evil” and the notion of “truth and lie in a non-moral sense”. Either we put away the pretentions of objective truth and objective moral system making completely, or we keep pretending. My response is to say “Nietzsche, you are just wrong.”

I also think many give too much weight to the collective. A collection of fools or evil doers aren’t going to help inform what anyone ought to do. And if I, alone, am incapable of knowing what is the best rule, why would a collection of similar subjects be of much help? We can and should deliberate with the collective, seek counsel from the wise, and learn from others; but some sort of general consensus has no logical connection to the soundness of the rule the collective majority happens to like. It’s romantic to think how all of us individually weak ones might be made stronger when we come together, but every once in a while, the collective jumps off of a cliff together.

1 Like
46

It’s not clear what you want here, so instead I’ll go off on a tangent, induced by your mention of Nietzsche…

Replying to myself:

Nietzsche wasn’t so good at the analytic stuff. The Will to Power becomes a rule, to itself be overcome; this bit of reflexive logic shows the instability, the lack of felicity, in (a perhaps naive view of) Nietzsche’s work; a sort of diagonalisation setting out the incompleteness of his account. Nietzsche claims a monistic principle that is supposed to explain everything, but the diagonal sentence is fatal to any claim of completeness while harmless to an open practice. Nietzsche would of course agree with all this.

Who decided what makes a revision of the virtues an improvement and not merely a change? Nietzsche takes the individual as fundamental, with the result that the evaluative standpoint is the individual’s. But that very standpoint is constituted by the practice, by the discourse. Walking off the cliff is sometimes noble! It’s within the community of practice and the discourse that this might be recognised or rejected.

Anyway, all this is waffle, mere hand-waving. What remains is the inevitable fact of choice.

47

Hey Banno, as you’re a Wittgenstein aficionado, don’t you think some of the closing aphorisms from the Tractatus are particularly relevant here? I’m thinking, in particular, of this:

6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value—and if there were, it would be of no value.

If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental.

What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental.

It must lie outside the world.

I take this to mean that ethics cannot be reduced to the objective. Objective judgement is of course of vital importance across a vast range of activities, but not in respect of qualitative judgements.

48

This is from the Tractatus, which I take PI to supersede. Roughly, post-PI the “sense of the world” remains unstated, but can be enacted and shown, or left in silence. In neither case is the sense of the world said; and in neither case is the sense of the world either subjective or objective; that dichotomy doens’t much apply. Once “sense” is understood as enacted or shown rather than stated, the subjective/objective dichotomy loses its grip, because that dichotomy only gets purchase on claims that purport to be said - true or false statements about how things are. Showing isn’t a candidate for being subjective or objective in that sense; it’s not the kind of thing that takes a truth-value against a “pole”.

This fits with what I said about “objective” and “subjective” being loaded terms rather than clean categories. The terms carry commitments that don’t survive scrutiny once you stop treating “the world” as something to be reported on from one side or the other. Our understanding of the world has what might loosely be called a “subjective” pole only in the sense that imagining or interpreting always involves someone doing the imagining or interpreting; but that’s not the same as saying the sense of the world is itself a subjective fact rather than an objective one. The dichotomy presupposes that sense is the sort of thing that could be said, and that’s exactly what’s given up in moving from the Tractatus to the Investigations.

Once sense is severed from saying, the subjective/objective distinction - which is a distinction between kinds of claims - simply doesn’t attach to it. The question “is it subjective or objective” is as malformed, in this context, as asking whether a gesture is true or false.

3 Likes
49

Right - makes sense to me! But I think one can be explicit about the applications of “subject and object”, and also hold that subjective and objective have meaningful uses. For example, you wouldn’t put the father of a vocalist on the panel of a talent quest, for obvious reasons. A judge might have to recuse himself from a trial because it has been discovered that a relative of his might be implicated. There’s no reason such cases can’t be intelligently debated, it’s not as if the issue of objectivity and obstacles to it are esoteric or unintelligible.

Perhaps Wittgenstein’s ‘being enacted and shown’ is a tacit recognition of the fact that ‘actions speak louder than words’, in that what a person does shows more about what they really believe than what they say (hypocrisy and bad faith being obvious and egregious examples, seen all the time in public life.) Isn’t that what Wittgenstein is getting at here?

1 Like
50

Looking to use over meaning is exactly that.

Here’s a different issue: conflict of interest and the appearance of bias. That’s not so much the same as “subjective” and “objective”. Let’s not conflate them.

51

Yes !

Philosophers forget that life is more than words, that words only have purchase in the larger context of non-verbal conduct.

52

Have you read Spengler ? This reminds me of what he calls “ethical socialism.”

In pragmatic terms, the possession of “objective truth” ( according to the possessor of this suspicious good) is tyrannical. It’s just the nerdy logocentric version of “God is on Our side.”

It’s arguably ( says the cynic ) the koolaid intoxicant of “useful idiots” who march behiind self-conscious nihilists/egoists like Stalin. I’ve only read one bio of Stalin, so I am open to feedback. He’s just a metaphor for a “great man” who uses the faith of others in a holy ideology to get what he wants from them. Does a good man who cares about virtue rely on a tool like this guy (Beria) ? Also, why did Napolean crown himself ?

My point is that objective truth is the fetish of the theoretical man. It is basically a slave ideology, because it conjures the non-apparent and currently impotent as “actually true anyway” and “of great value anyway.”

My fellow readers of Kojeve will understand that “slave ideologies” aren’t simply bad or stupid. It’s messier and more fascinating than that.

53

Precisely ! And I think we go deeper into this as we understand speech as a genuine action in the world, the making of noises and inscriptions. So-and-so makes a great noise about virtue, but he beats his wife and embezzles from his employer.

1 Like
54

JW2111 -

In order to define objective morality, we must address the hinge between the subjective and objective morality/fact. The Axiom. Human survival and wellbeing matter.
Everyone who builds a morality crosses this gap. To cross it objectively, the fewest, most basic and most widely shared premises must be used.
Human survival and wellbeing matter. Can objectiveness be found from this statement? Or is it just opinion? I’m not sure. I am however, sure, that if my, or another axiom can be objectively moral, that the lower limit of the global optimum’s placement can be higher than basic Biology.

I think you’ve hit upon the key for establishing what can make for a quasi Universal justification for morality here, if not an Objective one. The Mattering of our quality of life to us experiencing beings.

Sam Harris talks about maximising the wellbeing of conscious creatures as a basis for morality, and tries to justify that scientifically in order to objectivise morality, but has met with objections.

Personally I think that the Mattering is enough to bridge the Is-Ought gap, because it recognises that that there are different ways of being. There don’t only exists Objects meaninglessly interacting in the world like billiard balls, there are also experiencing Subjects which have Stakes in the factual state of affairs. It matters to us Subjects what happens to us, this is a fact too. It is the qualiative nature of being an experiencing Subject which makes it meaningful how we treat each other, brings purpose, value and mattering into the world, and makes Oughts meaningful. My view, like yours I think, is that this is enough to justify ‘‘Universal’’ Oughts, without needing to bolster it with the label ‘‘Objective’’. That universality is good enough for me to stop worrying.

As regards to what we can objectively say about human morality, I’d stick with our evolution as a social species which has evolved traits like empathy, a sense of fairness, caring, trust, bonding, cooperation, etc along with our more selfish predispositions (see eg Patricia Churchland’s ‘‘Braintrust’’). Which over time became conceptualised as Right and Wrong and formalised in social norms and rules in various ways.

55

That is a sharp observation. It is a good thing I am not a Stalinist; I do not share his ideas or methods at all.

One might say, “He doesn’t share the tyrant’s ideas, yet he displays his photo on his profile”—what is that? An unconscious fear of greatness?

I would like to clarify this specifically for you (because what you think matters to me).

In reality, it is neither. Rather, it is partly a tribute to history: a man who had a difficult childhood and lacked a formal education, yet possessed a truly “animalistic will,” became infected with certain ideas in his youth. And he—I don’t know exactly how it all came together in his mind—used those ideas as a “facade for his will.” After all, the one thing I can say with certainty about him is that he possessed an immense, overflowing “vitality.”

And it serves as a reminder: a reminder that any ideology or revolution is an act of aggression—pure will on the part of those seeking power, reinforced by certain ideals. Just look at the suffering it causes. My family, on all sides, were direct victims of the actions of the man in that avatar. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Yezhov, his actions, and how he met his end?

The imposition of “truth” upon others. His face reminds me of all that. My country’s history is one long, unbroken tragedy. The 20th century was a ceaseless chronicle of bloodshed. I don’t have the exact figures on the number of victims of these regimes, but I am certain the toll is comparable to the losses in Nazi concentration camps (if not greater).

I believe it is important to remember this. Today, when someone comes forward with new slogans—such as a “special path,” or conversely “freedom,” or “our nation is unique”—that face reminds me of what lies behind it all. Yet it also reminds me that, without a vital will to power, it is impossible to organize anything in people’s lives at all.

Everything I said above is quite self-contradictory if examined systematically. Yet, that is precisely what “irreducibility” means in my own understanding. Consider two propositions: “Stalin was a tyrant” and “Thanks to Stalin, the country made the leap into space.” At first glance, they seem contradictory. But I simply refuse to discard either one just to maintain a neat, coherent picture in my mind. It is precisely this ability to hold onto that irreducibility that prevents one from becoming frozen in a fixed, final form.

I have tried to outline this briefly, and I hope you grasp my point.

1 Like
56

I didn’t consciously recognize the photo ! Weird. But you point it out and I recognize it as one that was probably in that biography I read. No offense toward you intended, just to be clear !

57

Thank you for explaining. I wouldn’t project simplistic low motives on you anyway. I don’t recall Yezhoz. It’s been years since I’ve read that bio.

But I understand the acknowledgement of vitality. I am more interetested in understanding than moralizing. Stalin was exuberant, potent. Shakespeare gives us dashing villains. Consider ice-cold Edmund in King Lear. There’s a dark beauty in concentrated capable egoism.

I see Nietzsche as a response to Schopenhauer. Nietzsche allows himself to see that life “is” exploitation. That only the dead and the unborn are innocent and pure. And knowledge is not for or even available to the “clean” and the “pure.” The person who wants to know has to know “evil” as well as he or she knows “good.” Indeed, every child knows “good.” That’s the easy part. The predictable presentism and self-righteous ancestor judgment of every new generation of brats who leave the dirty work to their parents…

I’m with you on all of this. Seriously. It’s that messy. Ethnocentrism or a “flag” is what binds. It’s the group that’s intensely bound that accomplishes something. On a personal level, I express this in terms of “all vision is blindness.” There is no “all seeing perch.” There is no “but I am innocent” perch. That is kid stuff, the stuff that politicians spray on chronological adults who want to be rescued from their freedom, their complicity, their personal responsibility. To overstate and oversimplify, etc.

I’m with you on this too. 100%.

I sometimes think about Lincoln. The man walked on oceans of blood. He is perhaps the most sentimentalized American leader. I think highly of him but I try to see him as a human who decided whose blood to spill and when to spill blood, not whether to spill blood. That’s a given. That’s the job, wielding violence. We inherit the results of the glorious bloody deeds of the great leaders. “Great” in the sense of massive and weighty, not in the sense of innocent and simple.

1 Like
58

I’ve not seen something this funny on this forum. Nice :stuck_out_tongue:

59

The problem is this is, in the way required by “objective morality” a total failure of getting us off the ground. It matters to you. It doesn’t matter to plenty of others.
It doens’t matter (necessarily) to wolves, or mosquitoes, or Angler fish etc.. etc.. etc…

If we’re going to circumscribe “morality” to purely interactions between humans, then it is chauvanistic in some significant sense and couldn’t be much more than a statistically acceptable preference for a species with the power to enforce their preferences.

This seems to really, truly, miss the entire point of discussing ethics (and I take most of the other writers on this bent to be failing in the same way.. @Fireologist in the most obvious way).

60

May I ask you to tell me how to speak “correctly” about ethics?

1 Like