I’ve been reading threads lately on whether or not there is or can be an objective basis for morality. [Here and here if you’d like to see them for yourself–they make interesting reading, but the second in particular is quite long (and more academic in flavor)–I had to read it in multiple sittings.] I decided to post my own take on the question here.
First, I think in both threads, people are conflating four propositions: 1) There exists an objective basis for morality, 2) That objective basis is (the monotheistic Christian/Jewish/Islamic version of) God, 3) We have the capacity to access and understand the objective basis for morality, and 4) We do know what is/is not objectively moral. It seems to me that these four are at least to some extent separable.
For instance, it seems entirely possible that there is an objective basis for morality, but our understanding of morality is partial and imperfect, but improvable. For instance, one take on the Christian Bible is that it presents a God who has evolved and improved over time. It seems to me perfectly reasonable (internally consistent) to argue that God exists and provides the objective basis to morality, but to explain the evolving morality in the Bible as a change in human understanding of morality based on God somehow getting through to us better. Of course, this wouldn’t work for someone who believes the Bible is the literal, absolute, and immutable Word of God–but if one demotes the Bible from that status and views it as a human cultural product, the result of one cultural tradition’s striving to know and follow God, this is a tenable view. This view accepts 1 and 2, and 3, but would reject 4 in any literal absolute form.
It also seems entirely possible that there is an objective basis for morality, but that it is not God in the traditional understanding of the monotheistic traditions, accepting 1 and 3 but rejecting 2 and 4. It seems to me that this isn’t all that different from the previous scenario. Change in moral standards may be seen as humans/cultures somehow growing spiritually whether or not the monotheistic God is part of the picture.
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Having gotten this far in my analysis, it occurred to me that there is no practical difference in consequences for accepting or rejecting any of these propositions. Suppose there is in fact some objective basis for morality, and even suppose that we have some kind of access to and understanding of that objective basis. We still have conflicting claims regarding what is and is not moral, and what matters is what we do about that. One person or group says A is moral, another says A is immoral. Even supposing both accept the existence of an objective basis for morality, God or other, they still don’t agree on what is or isn’t moral. They are no better off, in terms of resolving their conflicting views, than two persons who do not believe in an objective basis for morality. Arguably, they may even be worse off, in the sense that they are more likely to stick rigidly to their opinion, each believing that it comes from God and not from themselves, and have no way of resolving any practical conflict resulting from their disagreement other than the use of power and ultimately violence.
Unless resolving the question of whether or not there is an objective basis for morality helps us resolve conflicts resulting from differences in moral beliefs, it seems to me the discussion is of purely academic and personal interest. One might be interested just because it’s a puzzle one enjoys thinking about, or one might be concerned to resolve the issue in one’s own mind (and as with so many such questions, clearly reasonable (and unreasonable) people are found on both sides of the question). But unless the consequences are different for believing one thing rather than another–I suspect that attempting to persuade other people to believe one way or another is a waste of time and energy.
I would like to be wrong about this, because I would like to think that the human race might eventually hope to resolve such conflicts without resorting to violence. So if anyone can come up with an argument as to why the actual practical consequences of one belief is different from the other, in terms of resolving conflicts resulting from differences in moral values or beliefs–please, leave a comment.
You’ve neatly summed up my perspective on this issue: the belief that there is an objective morality, determined by God, but which is imperfectly known to us.
I agree that the practical implications of disagreement are limited, unless one party is convinced that he or she possesses absolute truth. Simen has taken up this question on his blog. Even though he does not believe in an objective morality, I think his practical approach — the steps he would take to give moral order to society — are virtually indistinguishable from mine.
I had a different goal in mind in that dialogue. In my view, our innate conviction that right and wrong are objective constructs is evidence of God’s existence.
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Stephen, you say:
“In my view, our innate conviction that right and wrong are objective constructs is evidence of God’s existence.”**
I had kinda figured that this (and your more recent post about meaning) were stand-ins for “Does God exist?” And I can see why you would consider the existence of innate moral intuitions (note how I modified your terminology to suit myself 🙂 *) as evidence for God’s existence. But as you’ve seen, this counts as confirming evidence for you for a belief you already have, but not as convincing evidence for people who do not already share that belief. In my way of thinking, this makes your belief reasonable, but not necessarily true.
* Actually, given the evidence, a conviction that right and wrong are objective can’t really be innate, or people wouldn’t be disagreeing about that very issue.
**Based on my almost-nonexistent knowledge of Kant, you are in good company with this. Didn’t he base a good chunk of his philosophical system on this very idea?
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Good post, Addofio. You zero in on one of the points I was trying to make in the thread you linked to: namely that insistence on there being an objective foundation for our moral insights is pointless if there is no way we can appeal to such a foundation in any public manner to resolve moral questions, and if the existence or nonexistence of such grounding has no practical consequences.
I think, by the way, that much the same view can be taken toward the question of free will.
-Malcolm
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I concede that my belief in an objective morality is not necessarily true. And I probably should have expressed my idea differently in the above comment.
I’m not very invested in converting other people to Christianity. However, I do want people to respect theists, instead of assuming that we must be narrow minded and unenlightened. The argument about objective morality is really more about that — showing people that theism can be defended rationally.
As for your other argument — “A conviction that right and wrong are objective can’t really be innate, or people wouldn’t be disagreeing about that very issue”.
Should we expect that every person is equally “tuned in” to his or her innate moral sense? For example, some people are more self-aware when it comes to emotions. I have no doubt that there’s a range of sensitivity to that inner nudge about morality. Maybe tone-deafness is a better example.
As for Malcolm’s comment — If morality is objective, we can strive to correspond our actions toward that ideal — however dimly we perceive it. If morality is not objective, we can make up any set of rules to please ourselves: women must always walk two steps behind, or whatever.
Pragmatically, it may come out the same. Psychologically, I think objective morality is worth fighting for.
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There’s too much to say for the time I have to invest right now, so I’ll just make one small point. I think it might be worth exploring where our thoughts go if we think about the difference between morality being objective, and there being an objective basis for morality. There might be some space between those two formulations for some creative thought.
A not-terribly-close analogy might be to human color vision. Our color vision is not in fact objective; we do not all perceive the same color as everyone else or a see a given color as the same under all conditions (even in white light.) But our color vision does have an objective basis, that physicists have thoroughly explicated (light waves and wavelength.)
It also occurs to me that whether or not morality is objective, there seems to be agreement that it has at least inter-subjective properties (in the sense I discuss here and here), at least among participants on your blog, Stephen.
Having followed both discussions, I am now firmly but uncomfortably on the fence. The problems with both the arguments are more prominent to me than the virtues, and neither seems to me to get us closer to agreeing about specific morality. Or probably more importantly, knowing how to handle our disagreements, especially when they are significant and deeply felt.
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Cutting to the quick:
The objective basis of moral obligation is found in the simple couplet: you should treat others as you desire to be treated.
Morality is a quest for harmony between our desires for ourselves and our desires for others.
Conversely, the objective basis for amoral behavior is, in a word, hypocrisy: a dissonance between desires for ourselves and our desires for others.
In a Christian sense, the basis of moral obligations remain the same, but the focus become exalting: we should treat others as we desire God to treat us.
As God is an “other” in the sense of the first statement, this latter instantiation is consistent, but emphasizes the Christian’s hope that God will reward our efforts at lifting our fellowman using our meager capacity by exalting us with his infinite power: thus instilling a deeper sense of moral obligation to our fellowman, because of our amplified desire to be exalted by God.
A belief in God and in atoning power impels man to deeper devotion to his fellowman on this principle and upon the recognition of our dependence upon God for desirable eternal blessings; and gives us power to continue in treating others with grace, kindness, forgiveness and long-suffering even when we are grossly mistreated. This because our moral compass is not disrupted by how we are treated by our fellowman, but is firmly fixed on how we desire to be treated by God.
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Yours seems to me a good bedrock upon which to base your own sense of morality, and I do think the Golden Rule represents the beginning-point for any workable universal morality for us as a social species.* But I’m not sure that makes it “objective”.
Of course, if one believes in God, and that God is the ultimate in “objective”, and that God has dictated one’s moral code, then one believes that moral code to be objective. And of course, if the premises (God, God dictated the moral code) are true, then one would be right. However, as a firm agnostic, I simply don’t have the pre-requisite beliefs, and so claims of objectiveness based on them are not persuasive to me. But I totally understand why they are to you–that was one of the points I tried to make in the original post.
*There’s a certain ‘pulling-oneself-up-by-one’s-bootstraps’ aspect to this–since clearly I’m using my already-developed set of moral beliefs or moral sense to make my evaluations. And since my moral sensibility was formed in part by a Protestant Christian upbringing, that I find your’s compatible is no surprise.
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Please. Nothing has been established about how this rationally defends theism. Our “innate” sense of right and wrong may well be sociobiological constructs that play on emotions in order to survive. It could have nothing to do with God and it may not be objective.
The reason atheists don’t respect theists is because their arguments for the existence of God are very poorly-constructed, like the Argument from Morality.
I would, however, like to see a theist or even a humanist defend their “objective” morality. It’s always just merely asserted. CS Lewis’ argument was horrible, so I’m looking for something else. And Craig doesn’t count since he plagiarizes Lewis pretty much. I can explain why if I’m pressed on it.
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I’m not sure what the “this” was in your mind, nor why you appear to think I was defending theism. I agree that there is no satisfying argument that would “prove” the existence God–but I personally find atheist arguments purporting to “prove” there is no God equally unsatisfying, and for similar reasons. Both theists and atheists tend to use arguments that satisfy themselves, but are inherently unconvincing to anyone who does not already agree with them.
And I would like to point out that one might respect persons regardless of whether or not one finds their arguments on a particular point convincing. Respecting theists and respecting their arguments are two different matters, and I think the distinction is important.
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In case Eric was addressing my comment:
I only brought God into the discussion to show that a belief in God provides a qualitative (and magnifying) difference in the power of the objective moral basis that I proposed: a qualitative difference that adds dimension, meaning and effect, but is still built on the SAME OBJECTIVE MORAL FOUNDATION.
Forget any theistic implications for a moment, and just consider the root argument:
The objective basis for morality is an proactive quest for harmony between how we desire to be treated by other intelligent beings and what we desire for other intelligent beings.
An uncomfortable dissonance results in a healthy, normal person if they force another soul, or selfishly use another soul for his/her own purposes. This because a healthy intelligent being doesn’t want to forced or used by others. This is, if you will, the fundamental nature of conscience. It is a balance between how we would be treated and how we would treat others.
There are unhealthy individuals that lose their balance, and for a variety of reasons adopt a reactive approach for governing their own behavior. Instead of treating others as they themselves desire to be treated, they accept dissonance as their guide and treat others as they fear others desire to treat them in a kind of reactive Dog-eat-dog or survival of the fittest value system.
Those who strive to increase this harmony I’ve described selflessly lift others, bring virtue into the world, and are living examples of moral light; while those who promote dissonance between how they, themselves, want to be treated and how they treat others selfishly use others, bring depravity into the world and are living examples of immorality.
It is really so simple that a mere child can understand it:
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The soul who first spoke these words lived by them with exactness and is the greatest moral light to have ever walked the earth.
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Feste Ainoriba, your comment makes me wonder what people, including myself, would consider to be an “objective” basis for morality. That is, what would be the criteria that any given basis for morality would have to satisfy to be considered objective?
The reason your comment raises this question for me is that while I think the golden rule is an excellent basis for morality, and one that might be considered universal in that every widespread religion contains some version of it, and as you say it makes sense even to very young children–I’m still not sure that that satisfies me that it’s objective. Which in turn makes me wonder what would satisfy my own (subjective) criteria for objectivity.
One could make an argument that the logic of survival–survival of a society, survival of individuals within their society–might constitute an objective basis, in that logic is not something we make up, it is something that just is and that constrains the entire universe, not just us or our minds. And that the purpose of morality for a social species such as ourselves is to guide and contribute to our survival, and that the golden rule does this. However, even if all this were granted and the argument were made air-tight and satisfying to all (which I am not pretending to have done and suspect could not be done for the simple reason that no argument known to humanity is satisfying to everyone)–but even if it were, I’m not sure that that would quite capture what I, or other people including yourself, are reaching for when we ask for an objective basis for morality.
Which in turn doesn’t mean to me that it is not an adequate basis, or that morality has no firm basis and can therefore be entirely arbitrary–whatever any given group decides and can impose on enough people. If you accept the golden rule as given by God, and Eric, say, or I, accept it as the result of evolution and the logic of survival, it will still work for all of us and provides some common ground for living and working in the same society.
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Adofio,
It almost sounds as though you are wrestling with absolutes, not objectivity. If you are seeking that frame of reference in which all morality distills into an aesthetic, mutually reinforcing and internally consistent set of tenets that have clear, simple and obvious meaning: then you are grappling with finding an absolute basis for morality.
A word on perception and reality: The geocentric frame of reference was popular because there is no sense of motion for an earthbound observer. From his perspective, the sun appears to rotate around the earth. Parenthetically, a study in 2005 showed that 20% of adults in the USA still believe that the sun goes around the earth.
A few great minds grappled with the troubling motion of wandering stars (hence, planets) whose motion in the heavens did not follow pattern symmetric. Crafting models (theories) of physical processes that caused these erratic, though periodic motions was complex and unwieldy. Copernicus postulated a heliocentric model and then went to work to map out the epicycles from a heliocentric frame of reference. When he changed his frame of reference, miraculously, cosmological movement resolved into a series of symmetric, periodic, homogeneous patterns: all heavenly motion was elliptical: and this gradually became accepted as the “true” nature of the solar system.
But the story doesn’t end there: A few centuries later, another great mind, Albert Einstein, in his theory of relativity compellingly argued that ALL frames of reference are valid. It is just that some are more useful than others for modeling particular processes. In engineering, it is quite common to find that changing from one frame of reference to another is useful in simplifying mathematical modeling and solution processes. The frame of reference that is most useful for solving one kind of problem is not the right frame of reference for solving a different problem. So, if Einstein was right and all frames of reference are valid, what gives us the sense that a heliocentric model of the solar system is more ‘true’ than a geocentric? The answer lies outside of the realm of science and belongs to the realm of aesthetics. We hold heliocentrism to be “truer” that geocentrism because it appeals to our sense of symmetry, harmony and pattern simplicity, not because of science which currently and clearly indicates that all reference frames are valid.
Furthermore, meaning is a transcendent quality arising from the relationship between facts, other facts, contexts, and the frame of reference in which they are viewed (Hofstadter’s book, “Godel, Escher, Bach…” convincingly demonstrates this point).
Thus, the quest for any absolute frame of reference, one in which all things pertaining thereto make perfect sense and are in perfect harmony and are governed by pattern simplicity (rules) is a search for order and purpose and meaning: it is a religious and spiritual quest that can only be satisfied by changing your frame of reference until you find that singular frame of reference in which all things distill into order, harmony, purpose, and meaning. Most people are reluctant to wander from the comfort of their impoverished perspectives, and instead, dig in and tell themselves what Hamlet’s Queen Gertrude declared, “…all that is I see.” These are left inevitably, in the words of Paul, to be “…ever learning, but never able to come to a knowledge of truth.”
By analogy, since science holds that ALL frames of reference are valid, finding a frame of reference in which the tenets of morality distill into pattern simplicity with self-evident meaning and purpose cannot be “proven” in the scientific sense as being absolute, objective, or true.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t such a universally true (objective) and absolute frame of reference, just that science or deductive reasoning is not equipped to discern it.
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