andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2007-03-26 05:41 pm
andrewducker) wrote2007-03-26 05:41 pm
It's not a matter of rights
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 :->
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 :->
Re: let me tell you everything
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).
Re: let me tell you everything
1. Moral responses are hard-wired, objective facts, mediated by substances (hormones promoting trust and kindness) and structures (mirror neurons and the pre frontal cortex). They are adaptive andnecessary for the species; their absence is a pathology.
2. They are, like language, innately wired and intersubjectively elaborated. The basic "phoneme" of morality is the groups that one belongs to. Morality is about Us and Them. You can wire up peoples brains, and see them neurologically "blank" people not identified as part of the tribe. Thus, in the run up to wars and Rwanda like situations, the drive to first of all designate the to-be-killed as "others".
so far so objective
3. Like any other basic human drive (sex, fear, aggression), we have evolved the capacity to respond to stimuli and symbols that did not intially evoke the response. As we can be phobic of buttons and get turned on by leather, so we can decide to get worked up about female circumcision in Nigeria. To care for people outside of ones immediate group is a luxury of evolved society, one that can dissolve alarmingly quickly - e.g. Yugoslavia.
4. I think, therefore, morality is an obectively existing drive that is intersubjectively elaborated early on in development. In highly civilised people it can expand beyond it's immediate remit, but can be equally quickly rescinded.
SO THATS WHY i have problems with your scheme. Where do I fit into it?
Re: let me tell you everything
Which I'm not going to disagree with even slightly :->
The "Us/Them" thing is something I agree with - and have bumped into a few times before. It's inextricably linked to Dunbar's Number, and amusingly explained in Inside the Monkeysphere".
Vegetarians, for instance, clearly believe that all animals are more "Us" than carnivores do.
What I was asking about was individual ideas of right and wrong. i.e. "Do you believe that your morals are objective?" which you clearly don't - you believe they're opinions, albeit ones based on both nature (for their basics) and nurture (for the range and complexities which they change to cover).
My question is thus orthagonal to the answer you're giving, in that I (effectively) asked "What movies do you think are cool?" and you responded with "The definition of cool is intersubjective and dependent on both innate and cultural characteristics." - a fascinating topic in itself, but not actually what I was talking about. Try being less meta next time :->
Re: let me tell you everything
what I am trying to point out is that your question enacts a category mistake; you are applying a logic/asking a question that whilst it might make sense to ask about Maths (do you think Number is an absolute or a subjective phenomenon), doesnt make sense as applied to morality.
That category mistake is clearest when you summed up my position as saying that I believe moral judgments are "opinions"...far from it.... to say that your moral judgments are subjective opinions is rather like saying your erectile response to naked ladies is an opinion, or your fear of wild bears is subjective....
i think that, in a strict Wittgenstinian sense, it makes absolutely no sense to apply the axis/category absolute vs subjective to morality.
so i agree, we are arguing orthogonally, its just that i think you are the one that needs to change axis to understand the phenomenon under discussion (*appends smiley face to signal In Groupness*) :->
Re: let me tell you everything
Which they are. They're personal responses based on both nature and nurture. What else is an opinion but that?
And I still think you'll find that there are a fair number of people out there who strongly believe that moral values are absolute, something built into the fabric of the universe or declared by God. That eating babies isn't just distasteful, or frowned upon, or that people abhor it, but Wrong (with a capital W).
Re: let me tell you everything
oh, dont get me wrong, I agree, its just that i think that they are as wrong as the ones who says they are purely subjective...neither position illuminates its subject, or not in a way that I find useful. IMHO, of course.
Re: let me tell you everything
I was quite disturbed by the responses from surliminal, and am currently writing a proper response in the form of an entry by itself. I could have sworn that the idea of rational morality went out about a hundred years ago.
Re: let me tell you everything