It's not a matter of rights

[andrewducker]

I've been thinking about morality, and while I know _my_ thoughts on it, and how they got there, I'm interested in what tack other people take. Specifically, for people that believe in absolute morality I'm curious as to what their basis/reasoning is.

I've therefore simplified the different approaches down to five options:

1) There is no absolute right and wrong - all morality is subjective opinion.
For those people who believe that all moral statements are claims about the way that the speaker would like the world to be. "Homosexuality is wrong." translates as "I wish people didn't engage in homosexual acts."

2) There is absolute right and wrong - I know what it is because God/God's representatives told me.
Which includes all of those people who draw their morality from religion. And know what right and wrong are either because they've learned from religious teachers or spoken directly to a divine entity. "Homosexuality is wrong." translates as "God says that people should not engage in homosexual acts."

The problem with this approach is that you're dependent on your religious teachers not having been fooled by their own religious teachers (or _their_ teachers, etc) and that the morality wasn't just made up by someone who then told them that God said so. If you heard it direct from God then this doesn't apply, but you might want to wonder about your sanity.

3) There is absolute right and wrong - I know what it is because it feels Right/Wrong to me.
Which covers all of those people who _know_ that stoning homosexuals to death is wrong, but this knowledge stems from internal intuition and feeling, not from external sources. "Homosexuality is wrong." translates to "Homosexuality is just plain wrong. I can tell."

The problem with this is that feelings aren't terribly trustworthy, and you if you feel that something is right, while someone else feels the exact opposite then you have to question why your feelings would have a direct link to Absolute Truth and theirs wouldn't.


4) There is absolute right and wrong - I don't know what they are though.
For those people convinced that there is an absolute morality, but don't maintain that they have access to said Universal Truth. You'd never hear these people say "Homosexuality is wrong.", instead they'd say "Homosexuality might be wrong, how would we know?"

The problem with this is that if you don't have access to Universal Truth then you don't have access to anything which could prove that there's such a thing as Universal Truth.

5) I have no idea if there is absolute right and wrong.
For those people that just don't know whether morality is objective or subjective. Those people aren't actually likely to have read this far, and probably don't think or care about this kind of thing, so who knows what they'd use to justify their stance on homosexuality. They might fill in the poll though, because polls are kewl.

[Poll #954176]

I am interested, by the way, and I'd love to know more. So do tell me how exactly you don't fit into any of the above categories - if nothing else I'll delight in pointing out exactly how you do :->

Comments

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to fit into these obvious straw men, but given how you've described it I have to go with '3' for all that I'm philosophically much close to '1'.

I believe that there are a rather small core of actions which 'almost everybody' -- across all human societies -- finds pretty repellent. Breeding children for food, for example. (Repellent and also impractical and expensive, in that case). So unless you entirely reject the concept of absolute morality, there's this set of things that keep coming up, across ages and societies, as being not quite how people behave.

Note that very little in the way of consensual sexual activity would be in that category, and nor would capital punishment for major transgressions of societal norms.

[andrewducker]

Oh, I totally agree that there are certain things that are commonly considered wrong across all human societies. And that these things could, in general conversation, be referred to as Wrong, with a capital W.

I'm obviously a 1, but 3 is where I'd go for otherwise - there are things that I automatically feel are wrong, I just don't assume that just because I feel something it's true.

And I obviously agree with you on your final paragraph.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I agree. see below..

[drplokta]

You left out "There is absolute right and wrong - it can be derived rationally without recourse to the supernatural".

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Do you think such a statement is intellectually defensible?

[andrewducker]

Yes. Mostly because I forgot that there are people who believe this.

Lacking a device to measure morality, and as logic can only transform statements, not generate them from nowhere, what would you derive it from?

[andrewducker]

However, you're right - it's one of the things a fair chunk of people believe, and should have been in the poll. It's clearly been too long since I hung out with people who did believe it :->

[terminalmalaise.livejournal.com]

I am tempted to say there is an absolute right and wrong that could be derived rationally by omniscient and perfectly objective beings, but since we humans are no such thing (and because I doubt the existence of such beings) we're pretty much on our own and left to do the best we can...

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Hmm, yes. That's probably what I believe, but it's not very defensible when I think about it, so feel free to file me under (3).

Or perhaps I believe in some sort of evolutionary morality - that any species that does well must have a similar morality because that's what works, and you could call that absolute morality because it's the only one that can ever survive.

Sadly, the more I think about that, the more I think that the evolutionary morality is at odds with what I'd like it to be. So maybe I'm a subjective moralist after all...

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

I kind of want to say that there both is and isn't absolute right and wrong. Something can be wrong in an objective way, while still being, subjectively, in a certain context, the right thing to do, because it's not *as* wrong as the alternative.

[andrewducker]

That's fine though. If you want to say that "punching people in the face is absolutely worth -10 points on the badness scale, while raping babies is worth -540,000" then that's still an absolute statement. It's only a subjective one if you're saying that you and I might differ about the points we assign, and it would be a matter of opinion, neither of us would be right.

[azalemeth.livejournal.com]

I am somewhere between the first and the last. If you find morality a trait in all sentient beings, then perhaps we could get somewhere, but alas you can mangle many statistics with a sample size of 'one' :-).

[imomus.livejournal.com]

"Homosexuality is wrong." translates as "God says that people should engage in homosexual acts."

Surely you need a "not" in one of those sentences?

Anyway, I'll go for 1 with the proviso that you replace "subjective" with "intersubjective" and accept that it's not about what world people would wish to see, but the one they do see. Because, while the law or the norm may be a "construct", it's a construct you get in a lot of trouble for deconstructing or choosing to disregard!

[andrewducker]

Through a miracle of livejournal-edit technology I've negated God's will.

I agree that some questions are about what people do see, but when it comes to morality, it really does seem to be a case of "I wish the world was such that that act was not possible.", not that they see the act as having not occured. I suspect I'm misunderstanding your meaning though.

I do agree that intersubjectivity and culture definitely inform our moral choices.

[ami-bender.livejournal.com]

I would propose a 6th alternative:

Right and wrong are socially created values that are designed to allow a smooth(ish) functioning society. E.g. Murder is considered very anti-stability, hence big taboo, as is lying. But something not as directly societal threatening (even if questionable) like trident is less taboo.

A good example is homosexuality. Where this is not seen as a challenge to society it’s not a big issue. Where it’s seen as an attack on society, it is.

[andrewducker]

I'm looking at it from a purely personal point of view - and as no culture is entirely homogenous (and most contain huge swathes of differing opinions), it would be very hard to maintain that morality is purely societal in nature.

Ooops

[wordofblake.livejournal.com]

2 and 3 are more or less the same thing!

Kind of...

Re: Ooops

[andrewducker]

Oooh, controversial.

Permission to steal your icon?

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I'd go for number three, but with the rejoinder that I know other people don't agree with my absolute beliefs, and I accept that they have equally absolute beliefs. I also don't necessarily follow mine.

I don't think it'd make sense for my own beliefs to be anything less than absolute to me. I have no desire to make other people follow them. Other people can do whatever the heck they like.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Hm, that's not as clear as it could be. I think that my beliefs are absolute. I honestly think that the things which I view as wrong (in a serious way, not when I'm being over-the-top about, say, art rock bands) really are absolutely wrong. There are some trangressions of these beliefs that will affect my friendship with people, or at least change my view of them. I don't seek to convert them however, but it's definitely stronger than some damn wishy-washy subjective view.

If all my beliefs were rigid laws of society, it'd be terrible, since even I don't follow my beliefs - I do things that I know to be wrong.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

I believe in the absolute wrong...of polls.

[wychwood]

I'm somewhere between "God/God's representatives" and "it feels right", I think. However, while I *do* think there's absolute right and wrong on some issues, mostly I think it's more complicated than that; things like homosexuality and gender roles vary widely from culture to culture, so it's not as easy to talk about absolutes there. Something like murder, on the other hand, is pretty much universally condemned, even with exemptions for things like war, self-defence, and (sometimes) People Who Are Not Real People by the rules of the society in question, and I do think that it is absolutely objectively wrong.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

I go about my daily life as a 3 but really I'm a 1. I live like a 3 because society allows me to live like a 3 and living like a 3 makes me comfortable, but I'm aware that if it came to the crunch I'd probably eat a baby sandwich.

[andrewducker]

Oh, me too. Well, maybe not a baby sandwich. But I certainly act like a 3 most of the time, with an underlying awareness of 1.

Incidentally:
http://ljconstantine.com/babycakes/page1.htm

let me tell you everything

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

YOU'VE SET UP A WEIRD dichotomy here, between "absolute" and "subjective"; most human phenomena lie in the bell curve inbetween those two extremes

ONLY PHYSICAL LAWS would rank as absolute, and even their we've got observer effects and local effects.

ONLY DREAM STATES are almost entirely without intersubective and objectyive input, but even they rely on previous experience of the world and other people.

MAYBE YOU ARE ASKING: is morality innate or acquired. Its pretty clear its innate, mediated by hormones like oxytocin, and necessary for the survival of the species.

IT IS ALSO PRETTY CLEAR that is is based on an intersubjectivity that strictly defines in groups and out groups.

THE BASIC MORAL LAW, biologically speaking is: preserve the in group and destroy or avoid the out group.

THATS ABOUT AS CLOSE to a human absolute as you will get. Without it none of us would be here.

Re: let me tell you everything

[andrewducker]

MAYBE YOU ARE ASKING: is morality innate or acquired.
Nope, I was asking whether people believed that morality was objective or subjective. Because while it's clear to me that it's subjective a large number of people the world over believe that morality is objective. Of course a large chunk of those believe it was passed down from God.

I was therefore wondering how many of my friends group did, and whether they beleived that their access to said moral absolute was external (God or God's representatives) or internal (their own perfect moral sense).

[ishkhara.livejournal.com]

I've gone with no.1 because personally I feel that morality is subjective to the society you're brought up in. I know my own morals and try to live by those, but who's to say that those morals would be the same as those held by someone who is living in a completely different culture.

[andrewducker]

Or, indeed, in exactly the same culture. Because I can guarantee that your neighbours have different morals to you :->

[chuma.livejournal.com]

Morality is something that is subjective in my opinion and suggesting someone is "wrong" believe something is in itself immoral in my book.

It is difficult to give examples and morality covers a number of subjects but in order to explain why there is no absolute I will use Murder. Most people would believe that Murder is an absolute wrong. But behind that statement there is quickly a number of contradictions.

If someone has a gun pointed at you and you have the opportunity to kill them before they kill you, I would say that is morally acceptable. If someone is pointing a gun at someone else and you have the chance to kill them first, I would say this is also morally acceptable. So right off the bat I have conceded that at some points, murder is acceptable.

Then there is what most would consider dodgy ground. If someone kills your lover in cold blood, is it morally wrong to kill them if you get the chance? The law definitely states it is, but I would be morally at odds over the subject, If it were me having lost someone I cared about deeply, I can't say for certain I would not do it or regret it afterward.

I know this is only one aspect of morality, but the value we place on human life is pretty intrinsic to our moral code. I'm probably oversimplifying it somewhat, but I fail to see how is there a clear cut code that we should follow; we all have to find our own way and live true to what we believe. Our interactions and observations help shape our opinions and morals and we should keep an open mind where possible.