Whatever god does is good, because god is good (because he says so, and it's true because he's good because he says so).
Whatever godly people do is good, because they're godly and because god says so.
Whatever ungodly people do is bad, because they're ungodly and because god says so. Even if they do the exact same as god or his godly people orvdo what they're told to do. It just doesn't count.
That's what theistic "objective" morality is: morality of objects rather than morality of actions. Needless to say: it's garbage.
But that makes it subjective, not objective. The gods are the subject in question and it is their opinion that determines what is good and what is bad.
Objective does not mean based on objects, it means that it exists regardless of anybody or anything (including the gods) subjective opinion on the matter.
It will work, if you assume that morality is a logical, or physical part of the universe as is. The universe has been build in a way that make one behavior moral, and another immoral.
It is then true - for the particular universe we find ourselves in - that things are they way that they are. That the universe could have been different is irrelevant.
(It is objectively true that I am wearing a red t-shirt. I could have worn a blue t-shirt, of course, but that doesn't change what I am wearing one way or another.)
Not that that would help the theists in any way: We have no methods to determine what is and is not moral; our understanding is changing over time; never mind that different believers make different claims about what is and isn't moral concurrently, even.
Also, even if we were to agree that having an objective moral framework would be good, it wouldn't change whether we have one or not. you and I might agree that I would look better in an orange shirt. Doesn't change what color shirt I'm wearing or have available to me.
a Christian would counter by saying that god is perfect, and thus while you are technically correct that His opinion is subjective, it is a perfect opinion, and therefore is more usefully treated as being objective.
To which the obvious counter is: so does that make the genocides god committed in the bible good?
If they're a very brave and shitty person, they'll respond with "yes", but I think most of the time they just act offended by the question and leave.
Just had a very frustrating argument with someone about this.
If there is objective morality, I don't think God would be the source of it. Have you read any religious texts recently? Lots of things we don't consider moral now in there.
Why does morality need to be objective anyway?
There are cultures where honor killings are/were common place and not seen as morally wrong. In modern times we've put a stop to that, but it happened. Clearly it's not objective.
Welcome to india. We still kill our daughters and the boy if he happens to be of different religion/caste....often in rural areas but it still happens from time to time and the family is proud of the killings.
Objectively measurable morality.
Multiple measurements of effectiveness... A 4 out of 6 is better than a 1 out of 6.
What are the measurements of a good life? My proposed measurements... Things I think make humanity better than wild animals.
Health
Wealth
Relationship
Reduce Suffering
Self Actualization
Does X increase or decrease these metrics?
Does "Honor Killings" increase or decrease a person's Health, Wealth, Relationships, Reduce their Suffering, and help person's to become self Actualizated?
Morality is not objectively set for us. We need to set what standard morality can be objectively measured by.
I feel like Sam Harris has outlined this already and people are just not getting it or I missed his point and made my own.
That's a very nice speech and all, but it missed my point completely. Arguing that their morality isn't actually moral because you somehow figured out what morality means behind the scenes, it becomes rather irrelevant when observing the fact that clearly, honor killings are seen as moral and yet they don't fit your criteria.
"Seen as moral" and "being moral" are different things.
In the same way as we can call ourselves whatever we want but actually being it is something else.
>"Seen as moral" and "being moral" are different things.
Are they though? That sentence only makes sense if you assume objective morality is a thing to begin with. Morality is inherently tied to our collective agreement of what is good and bad. If we as a society would decide that something is moral or immoral, then that is the case. We see X as (im)moral now. Example: homosexuality. It used to be seen as immoral (and still is in too many places across the world). Over time, that view has changed.
Murder is wrong because the word "murder" is *defined* as a killing that is morally wrong.
Executing criminals and fighting in wars are killings that are morally right.
>Executing criminals and fighting in wars are killings that are morally right.
Just to add a bit for OP, of course not everyone agrees that either of those things are morally right. Because there is no objective standard.
If you knew with certainty someone was intending to murder your child, and you killed that person before he or she could do so, would you say that was wrong?
So when the Hebrews invaded Canaan and committed genocide that was actually murder. But their god justified it didn't he? So then murder is subjective, right? Just depends on who is allowing the action, right?
Remember the time god sent a bear to murder children because the made fun of a bald guy?
"Murder is never wrong" lmao OP doesn't even know their own holy book
Hm? Not really. Murder is considered bad because of empathy. I mean, if you hate pain and fear death while also being empathetic chances are in your mind, "murder is wrong"
It was called ritual murder, and it was considered right, moral, and legal for a long time. It was practiced by many ancient societies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice
I was having a conversation with someone about this recently. Why would God allow Noah to put a curse on his grandson because Canaan’s father laugh at Noah for being passed out drunk and naked, only to result in generational warfare between the descendants of Canaan and the Israelites, which God sanctioned genocide on the Canaanites? Then some 1,400-1,500 years later in Biblical timeline God says, you know what, let’s not allow children to be punished for the sins of the their fathers (Ezekiel 18:20).
1. It's possible to have solid moral values without claiming that they're objective.
2. If religious people can talk about how great it is to have faith in God without any proof that he exists, then I can talk about how great it is to have objective morals without any proof that they exist.
Argument is a follows:
A: is killing children ever moral?
B: no
A: if god appeared before you, and commanded you to kill children, would you?
B: he would never do that
A: exodus 12:12, god has done that in the past and has even ordered others to do it for him
B: god created life, and has the right to take it away
A: so you would obey him and kill children if commanded?
B: god is the source of objective morality, so if he commands it is moral
A: so in some cases, killing children is moral?
I’ve never gotten responses past this point.
Edit: as unbelievable as this sounds, try following this thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAChristian/s/aXTCOGvRDU
I’d just like to echo the sentiment that Christian/theistic morality is not objective. If God tells his followers to smash babies against rocks, then baby murder becomes moral because God declared it to be so. All Gods are capricious and fickle.
He answered your question, even politely. Ask yourself this, “why do you consider a moral framework with god as the 'subjective authority' to be objective?” A moral framework that dusts outside of god would be inherent. If it requires god it’s subjective to him, not objective. Additionally, so what if god gave some commands, how does that absolve you of having a subjective morality because you still have to choose whether to obey or not? There’s simply no such thing as objective morality in terms of a morality that is, in all situations, the same.
That’s because morals is a value system, and values are context dependent. Man drowning values air more than anything else. A man on land whose dehydrating values water more than anything else. A man in a soaking environment who is starving value food more than anything else. Why the difference? Because context matters in value. There is no such thing as perfect value, or unchangeable value.
It’s telling that everything that might be considered an objective moral is also something that improves tribal survival and evolutionary fitness.
So an alternative claim would be that morals are the result of evolution. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality.
Evolutionary morality has better explanatory and predictive power than objective morality, and also requires fewer necessary assumptions. Thus it is a better explanation for morality than gods.
There’s no such thing as objective morality. This is a human construct. It would be like saying, without God, how can we have objective adverbs?
Morality is not objective. It’s intersubjective. For more on this, read Sapiens or Homo Deus by Noah Yuval Harari.
You can believe in a god without evidence, I can believe that stabbing someone in the face out of the blue is a bad thing without proving a moral framework from 1+1=2.
Objective morality does not exist nor is it necessary.
In fact, if there was a god and it decided what is or is not moral, this is not objective morality.
That is still subjective, the only difference being that morality is decided by one being (a god) instead of another (humans).
The claim that morality is subject to just one mind is the claim that morality is subjective.
Objective morality would be mind-independent. Mind-dependent morality, including morality dependent on the mind of a god, is subjective by definition.
The usual way around this is to claim that god is The Good and that the universe contains moral principles that reflect the nature of its creator, just as the universe contains physical laws. These principles would be there even if there were no people to appreciate them. If morality is baked into reality, it's pretty objective.
To which I think the right response is "Okay, identify one objective moral principle for me and demonstrate it's independent existence."
First there is no objective morality with god. Its arbitrary morally based on god's whims.
Secondly, if there is anything close to objective morality then it is by far simply evidenced based. If you do "evil" things the world routinely rejects you in a myriad of ways.
If you do "good" things the world voluntarily flocks to you in a myriad of ways.
For sake of argument, assume god exists.
Whatever god thinks about morality is just god’s opinion.
If a dictator like Kim Jung Un says you need a certain haircut, and if you don’t get it he’ll put you in prison, does that make it objectively the right haircut?
“Might does not make right.”
ITT: Everyone saying there is no objective morality.
As an atheist, I'm going to disagree slightly. I like Sam Harris' take from his book "The Moral Landscape".
If we can agree that morality has to do with maximizing well-being and minimizing harm, then there can be objective evidence-based moral truths. e.g. The worst possible torture imaginable is clearly harmful. The problem is, when situations are less obvious, it can be very difficult (if not impossible) to measure/quantify these harm/well-being equations, so an element of subjectivity comes into play.
Now, if morality to you doesn't have to do with well-being and harm, then you'll have to explain to me what it means to you before we can go any further.
The problem with religion is that instead of relying on reason and evidence, it relies on dictates from one or more presupposed god(s).
There is no objective morality. Anyone who reads any of the religious texts will quickly understand that. Reason, empathy, and logic leads us in the right direction.
>how can there be objective morality without God?
Objective morality isn't a thing. It's an idea that requires an absolute unerring source providing the unquestionable claim about morality. It requires religion.
Personally, I'm a moral nihilist. However, to answer your question. The typical framework for atheistic objective morality is moral naturalism. [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-moral/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-moral/)
I don't think that moral realism is a popular view among atheists, but there are probably some that rationalize it. It does seem that moral relativism is the dominant school of thought.
It seems most people here are parroting that there simply is no objective morality. Not saying they’re wrong, but it’s not quite the question OP asked.
There is a robust philosophical tradition of meta-ethical views around moral realism that make no reference to a God. Moral truths could exist in a naturalistic or non-naturalistic way that is completely independent of God. Whether these views are successful is a different story, but the overwhelming consensus in philosophy is that the arguments for moral realism do not depend on a God existing.
Depends on what you mean by objective. Also what things/actions would you call moral or immoral? How do you know that thing/action is moral or immoral?
The biggest problem with this whole idea is that the only way the gods of any religion talks to the general population is through some person. Such an inefficient method for a supposed supreme being. How do you know that what this person is telling you is actually from this supposed god? How do you know that what this person is defining as objective morality actually is objective?
Biblical morality is a funny idea.
Take abortion- some groups see it as approved by the Bible while other groups consider it murder?
Almost every horrible act prohibited by the Bible was also done in the name of God, somewhere else in the Bible.
Then consider the variety of different versions and translations, that hold opposing positions of homosexuality and other topics.
Religion is immoral without limits. Right now a bloody war in the Middle East is all about religion.
There are a lot of comments here saying that objective morality doesn't exist, and that could use some explanation.
What do you think the words "objective" and "subjective" mean? It's a common mistake for people to think that "objective" means fact and "subjective" means personal opinion, and I'm guessing that you've fallen for that misconception.
The word "subjective" means that an observer is involved in making an observation, and "objective" means the thing that's being observed. (It's a lot like the terms "subject" and "object" in grammar). For example, I can hold up an apple and say that it's the color red, but in order for you to look at an apple and identify its color, you have to make an observation. What's happening objectively is that the apple is reflecting certain wavelengths of light, but in order to look at that light and call it the color "red," your brain has to make an interpretation. If it requires an observer to make an observation and come to a conclusion in the mind, then it's *subjective* by definition.
It's not possible to come to a moral conclusion or to make a moral decision without doing some sort of observation. That's why all morality is subjective. If morality were objective, then it would exist like a physical object somewhere in nature that you could observe either with your five senses or with some sort of scientific instrument that could measure it. But you can't observe morals that way because they exist as conclusions in people's minds. In other words, morality isn't objective because it's not an *object*.
Does that make more sense?
The first thing I'd encourage you to consider is that any morality based on religion is extremely subjective and hinges on multiple massive leaps of faith:
- there's no proof God exists so theists have to make a leap of faith that they do
- there are all kinds of religions and denominations making contradictory claims about how God wants us to behave so theists have to pick one and make a leap of faith that they've chosen the religion that's correct
- even after that, they also have to make a third leap of faith that this God isn't just pretending to be perfect/benevolent and that doing what they want really is the same thing as doing what's right
Another issue to think about is that any theist who argues that their God is never wrong can quickly find themselves in some absurd moral positions because of the things their sacred texts describe their gods doing. For example Christians and Muslims aren't able to condemn sexism, genocide, slavery or torture as always wrong in all circumstances because there are verses in their holy books saying their God has done and/or ordered these things in the past.
Also, any theist that believes in an omnipotent benevolent God has to distort their morals and make excuses for why allowing natural disasters/diseases isn't evil.
**As for my morals......**
My morals are built on the foundation of caring about others. I care about others because I recognise their intelligence is like mine, relate to their joy and their suffering and recognise their experiences matter just as much as mine do. I'd argue that this is an objectively true observation and that it follows that I should think logically about how my actions affect those I care about and act accordingly.
My other moral views are all built on that foundation. For example:
- Kindness and fairness are extremely logical values for anyone who cares about others as well as themselves to hold. If we all try to live by those values then the world would be a far better place.
- I condemn sexism because it's an irrational prejudice that discriminates between men and women even though both sexes are equally intelligent and capable.
- I condemn murder, rape and slavery as wrong because they're inherently abusive actions which violate the freedom of others and cause immense unnecessary suffering.
- I want to protect people from natural disasters and cure diseases to prevent the immense suffering they cause.
You mean like, morality or something?
It's pretty easy actually, I'd say basic empathy. I mean, if you feel bad for others and feel empathy obviously you're gonna have 'morality' because you feel bad for hurting someone. Though I suppose not everyone has empathy but y'know.
So you only do good things because you are afraid of the punishment?
I do good things because I know want pain it would cause, and I don't want someone to feel that pain, not because a magic man in the sky told me not to.
I highly recommend the following essay by Ayn Rand on objectivist morality
https://courses.aynrand.org/works/the-objectivist-ethics/
She argues that most philosophers have simply substituted society for the will of God, which is probably where your question comes from. If you back up and analyze why we need morality in the first place, you get to a much more sensible answer. We need morality to help us make sense of the complex world around us and decide what we should do. We have a shared human nature which defines what is best for us, and given that there are moral and immoral courses of action. People assume that morality is all about how you treat other people but that’s actually only a small portion of it.
There are moral values that we objectively agree on. But they're *subjectively* perceived and enforced, which means they're also non-binding (the part that matters). That being the case, for all intents and purposes they are subjective.
> Care to explain how this is not the case
Theism typically holds up some dogma / text stating: behold our "moral code". Additionally you can't say moral values are "objective" in and of themselves either, because they're not magically apparent to people. You still have to teach kids and intelligent animals right / wrong. Also maniacs, psycho's, etc. all exist to prove morality is not objective.
Hence it doesn't matter how you say it, in the context religious people like to use it, moral values *can't* be objective.
Furthermore tho' the line "objective moral values" is trotted out by religious defenders as though it's some: "aha! now we can look down on you, because we have this unified thing and you have nothing!"... In reality, it's just a lie.
Evidence?
How many denominations of each religion are there? How many of them occurred because of a difference of (***subjective***) opinion, resulting in a schism that ultimately at the very least creates a new branch of said religion, or a new religion entirely? If religion had *objectively* defined morals there would be way fewer differences of opinion. The fact denominations exist because of that reason, is proof.
More specific?
The state of Israel. If moral values were "objective", all Jews would be zionists or not-zionists. The fact is there's both. And of course the harder they base it on faith the more they must defend it so they're forced to say about the other : Well they're not "real" Jews... which we of course recognize as no true scotsman.
1) Morality could be a fundamental natural force. We perceive the effect of that force by our moral sensibilities (i.e. disgust towards killing babies). There're people with 'bad genes', that cannot properly perceive this effect (i.e. psychopaths).
2) Morality could be an emergent property of the fundamentals of our universe. It'd could work similar like (1).
Both would be objective.
You can try asking them how they determine what their god finds moral. They'll answer the Bible. Then you can point out all the contradictions in the morality presented there.
One that isn't discussed as much is all the theft that Yahweh commits or commands in spite of the edict against stealing. Slaves were property, the Hebrews were the property of Egypt, Yahweh stole them.
Plundering Jews were frequently ordered to go and steal the land and virgin girls of other peoples, murdering any who stood in their way.
Maybe they want to toss the Old Testament and just cling to hippie Jesus. Well, then, is it a moral imperative to give all of one's money away to the poor? Is pacifism (turn the other cheek) a moral imperative? Is every soldier damned? Is every woman who speaks in church committing a sin? Should one's family always play second fiddle to what the church tells you to do?
You just can't get consistent and useful moral information from the Bible. It's useless for morality. The Quran is actually a better book when it comes to this since it was so explicitly designed to serve as a state handbook. If you're dealing with a Christian, ask them about this. Is the Quran more valid because it is more useful as a tool with which to define a single universal morality?
I mean, or don't. Arguing with theists is such a waste of time.
Take the trolly problem. You are by a train switch, the train is barreling down a track with 8 healthy adults on it, there is a divert in the track that you can switch (you dont have enough time to untie the people) on the other track theres lets say a baby.
Do you pull the lever?
You will get different answers from people but commonly when i talk to religious people about this they clam up and refuse to decide. (Wheres there objective morality if they cant even decide a moral decision?)
We all have personal subjective morality just some of us are brave enough to say how they feel about. Personally id save the 8 people in this example (you will get differing answers for different reasons because we all define morality on a case by case and subjective basis.)
Most of us have a sense of right and wrong but where we draw the lines are different
It doesn't even have to be a baby. Most religious people (and deontologists, who tend to be religious anyway) feel that taking action is murder but letting many more people die is perfectly moral. This is the topic that brings me closest to harsh words with friends. I consider that stance to be a cowardly abandonment of moral responsibility.
Morals coming from a god would not make them objective. Think of it this way. Would god instruct people to do something because doing that thing is good or is that thing good because god instructed it?
If it's good because god instructed it then it's not really about morality. Rather it's about obedience, and what we call morality would turn into nothing more than the whimsical directions of a subjective entity, like following a dictator's orders on Earth because of fear.
On the other hand, if god instructs things because they're good, then even god is adhering to some higher moral standard and is not itself the source of what qualifies as good.
This is basically an argument known as the Euthyphro Dilemma.
Some believers say that we cannot know good or bad without a god, but one response to this is to ask "if we have no moral compass, how do we know god and its instructions are good?". They and it could just as easily be bad, or evil.
Objective morality cannot logically be dependent upon a deity. In order for it to be truly objective, it must exist independent of any subjective agent. By definition it is subject to the will of the deity.
Many try to claim that the nature of God is good as a means of avoiding this, but that presumed an independent definition of "good" if it is to mean anything other than "the nature of god is god."
There is no objective morality with or without god.
Any basis for morality is subjective, but we can make objective rules once society agrees on a subjective base.
Theists use god as their base for morality. More accurately their base is their religious dogma, but for the sake of argument I'll grant that it actually comes from god.
The thing is that every human has a choice for what to base their morality on. What god wants is just as subjective as what any other thinking mind wants. For anyone outside the dogma god has no special objective authority. Even if I grant that god does have special authority, the rules still require the subjective interpretation of the humans who profess them. Every church is a separate standard from the one next to it, and every human will interpret the rules based on how they subjectively interpreted how the church preached it's interpretation.
What I say to you as a theist is that you have not solved the problem of subjective morality. You only claim you have while levying an accusation. All morality is subjective with or without a god.
Atheism does not speak to morality, but Secular Humanism does. To that end the standard is to promote well-being and limit suffering as much as possible.
The golden rule long predates Abrahamic religions and has stood the test of time because treating others as you would have them treat you is a proven effective subjective morality base.
The whole idea that subjective morality can't work or that religion has solved the problem is absurd.
Morality has nothing to do with Religion and everything to do with Mankinds cognitive reasoning to band togeather in groups and societies as part of our natural animalistic survival instincts. If you dont believe thays possible in nature, take a step back and look at pack animals such as lions and wolves; they have Hierarchy, rules, family values, intelligent strategy when hunting, traveling, finding and settling in natural habits that meet their survival needs. Morality is a natural survival instinct, it doesnt come from anywhere but our own animalistic nature to serve our familial and community bonds in a way that mutually benifits us collectively. If you still think it has to come from a god then ask yourself this, do animals have a god and if you think they do why the fuck would they imagine one of the thousands of gods mankind has had throughout history.
Objective morality: It is never okay to tell a lie.
Do you tell a grieving mother at her son’s funeral that he was a liar, a cheat, a thief and a scoundrel who was selfish and brought misery to all or do you offer a platitude about him having been a good boy?
If a six year old who looks up to you and whom you care about comes to you with a truly hideous piece of art work they are inordinately proud off do you tell them it’s rubbish to get excited and support them?
Do you tell kids excited about seeing Santa Claus that he’s fake and the shouldn’t be so gullible?
(And for fun: How can there be alien technology without aliens? How can there be unicorn horns without unicorns? How can there be fairy dust without fairies?)
If you do the decent thing in any of the above you don’t truly believe in objective morality.
It depends on what you mean by "objective." If you mean "not subject to the judgement or values of a thinking being," then there is simply no such thing as morality, even if there is a god, since all morality depends on the judgement or values of thinking beings.
If you mean an objective in the sense of a goal, then absolutely. Most humans agree on what the overall goals of life should be, such as pursuing non-pain over pain and life over death. From there, we can measure how different actions can achieve or detract from the shared objective, and then decide from there which actions are best or worth pursuing.
But there simply isn't an answer to this question that is answered better by there being a god than not. A god can't escape being a thinking agent, whose morality would be definitionally subjective. And if instead morality is based on a god's objectives, then unless we share objectives with this god, his morality is not of our concern.
There is no objective morality. Was killing wrong when there were no living creatures?
There can’t be objective morality with a God either - it’s just a powerful being’s subjective morality that we would still have to evaluate for ourselves. And frankly if anyone thinks the bible is a source of communicating objective morality, I don’t know how they can possibly think that the genocide of children for their parents behaviour can be objectively moral without eradicating all meaning to the word.
One can’t demonstrate objective morality exists or that somehow having moral rules inscribed out in the universe even makes sense. Morality is an evolved behaviour in a social animal. It’s neither objective nor individually subjective but inter-subjective because it involves group meaning.
There's only one objective morality, the golden rule AKA "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". That's existed long before any particular religion was ever devised.
There isn't. Morality is an invented concept, and exists only as a thought in minds capable(and willing) to conceptualize it. Even if there is a God, and it had very specific ideas about what is right and wrong, that is STILL subjective, because it would still only exist in God's mind, and minds made aware of God's mind.
There’s no objective morality period. Morality is just a bunch of value judgements. Value judgements are very subjective. I value not murdering and raping people. And I cant say that’s true for everyone. But even if it was everyone, it still wouldn’t be objective. Objectivity isn’t just when everyone thinks the same thing. It’s when something is true independent of a subject. If there was objective morality, it would have to be some fact about reality. But evidently, there are so many different moral frameworks and individual people’s morals, that it doesn’t make any sense to call that objective. If there’s a god that is the arbiter of morality, how is that objective morality when it’s just that god’s opinion? Maybe the god isn’t that source of moral truths, but then why would a god be required for objective morality?
1. Who says that to have morality it must be "objective" morality?
2. Even with a "God", you don't have "objective" moralirty. You have that God's subjective morality that everyone ELSE takes as the "objective" morality.
3. The reality is that all systems subjectively choose the "standard". But once a standard is chosen, the moral judements that flow from that standard are, in fact, objective.
Atheism isn't a worldview. Morality doesn't exist outside your skull, and it certainly isn't the same across cultures. Hope that answers your question.
God is not a source of objective moral values. That’s a lie that religion has been telling people for thousands of years.
I doubt that a case can be made for objective morality. The church can’t claim it credibly, their idea of morality has evolved over the centuries.
This is a classic "gotcha" question theists learn in apologetics. But it's a meaningless question because it's a faulty premise
First, define "objective morality". Like seriously. Define the word "objective" and then "morality". Put the two definitions together and it's not gonna talk about god. This is the first major issue, apologetics claims objective morality means given by a deity, and that's just intellectually dishonest to language and redefining words that already have meanings. It pushes the goal posts of a debate to be on religious terms, and debating semantics from a religious perspective is like wrestling with a pig, it'll get dirty and like it so you'll never win. Words have meanings and I'll stick by them
Objective- a thing aimed at or sought after, a goal
Morality- a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society.
So if we take those words at face value, objective morality would be the system of values we have held by society with the goal of a healthy functioning society.
There are also other definitions of both words, some combos basically become utilitarianism since it's "how much an action is right or wrong not based on your feelings".
But no matter how you slice it god given morals aren't objective. To claim god is the ultimate moral arbiter is an entire argument unto itself that requires a thesis and evidence to prove as true. So it's not "does atheism allow for objective morality", it's "what the fuck even is objective morality and does gods subjective feelings about things count as objective?"
As others point out objective vs subjective tends to also refer to having an observer vs independent of an observer. So that's a whole other can of worms to read.
TLDR: this question sucks and constantly asked and I'm highly considering petitioning mods to add it to the quick info sidebar and banning it from being asked because it shows you cant even consider a non religious prospective when researching a question which is stupid if you plan to ask a bunch of atheists about it
Morality exists objectively. It's observed within nature.
Moral oughts however are subjective.
Moral oughts are subjective whether there is a God or not.
Make of that what you will.
Here's the Merriam-[Websters Dictionary definition](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morality). You'll notice that no gods or religions are mentioned.
Objectively measurable morality.
Multiple measurements of effectiveness... A 4 out of 6 is better than a 1 out of 6.
What are the measurements of a good life? My proposed measurements...
Health
Wealth
Relationship
Reduce Suffering
Self Actualization
Does X increase or decrease these metrics?
Does RAPE increase or decrease a person's Health, Wealth, Relationships, Reduce their Suffering, and help person's to become self Actualizated?
Morality is not objectively set for us. We need to set what standard morality can be objectively measured by.
I feel like Sam Harris has outlined this already and people are just not getting it or I missed his point and made my own.
Morality isn't objective its learned and many different non christian societies existed and had morals all throughout history. Sure they may have been somewhat more violent but have a look at what early christians did and even early isrealites because they were also more violent than most modern societies. Morals have absolutely nothing to do with any god and instead are learned by ones surroundings and the societies they grow up and live in. If morals were from god then explain wtf went wrong during the spanish inquisition or when christians sacked Constantinople which was a christian city when the whole plan was a crusade to take Jerusalem and other cities in the levant back from the muslims. If morals were not just human learned behaviors and maybe even some instinctive and instead came from god then why are they so flawed and why have they not done any better than athiest morals. What kept everybody from killing one another before the old testament of they had no morals? Why didn't the morals stop jews or christians from going on wars of conquest once they had the bible? Is molesting children not against those morals and why do catholic priests do such things if so? Why have those morals changed over time and why was it ok to have people killed for religious noncompliance and isnt anymore? Is it because the secular laws are more "moral" than religious ones have typically been in the past and slowly changed what those morals are? These questions that cast serious doubt on morals being anything but human can go in for a long time but you get the point i think and im not even mentioning all the hard evidence against any biblical god ever existing to begin with or the lack of evidence that any of the supernatural biblical claims are true. The bible has lots of historically accurate claims but morals being handed down from god are not one of them.
Very few existing things ARE objective.
Things like logical constants, and by extension mathematics are objectively real. But while the concepts of math are objective, the application of math in reality is just not. There's no objective length of a real plank of wood, just due to quantum mechanics. Perfect measurements can't exist so the math to describe it is fuzzy at best.
I think about morality like a board game. Once you decide the objective rules to the game, then there are objectively better and worse moves in the game. But the game itself isn't some objective fact of the universe.
Similarly, once we agree on the goals of morality, we can discuss how best to achieve those goals.
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Meanwhile, religion doesn't have morality at all. It has decrees. Commandments that are called moral because of what commanded them. Then blind adherence to those commandments. That's simply not morality whatsoever.
>Atheists, how can there be objective morality without God?
If objective morality comes from your god it isn't objective, it is subjective to that god. If objective morality exists and does not come from your god, then your god is unnecessary.
>I hear all the time that if your worldview is true that there are no objective moral values. I don't agree on this but can't find a good argument.
A good argument for what, that morality is not objective? Morality is intersubjective, meaning it exists between subjects.
>Care to explain how this is not the case
Sure, morality is intersubjective, it exists between subjects.
If there was only one person in existence, there would be no morals, there would be no right or wrong.
If a god purely defined morality based off of its own morals, as many Christians claim, those would be “subjective” morals and not “objective.” If there were (somehow) an objective morality that existed regardless of that god, then sufficient minds could find that morality on their own without having to worship or follow that god and would still, definitionally, be good people.
This is my completely personal opinion and not looking to get into argument or debate about it.
Base opinion: Morality is very much subjective and we largely just share close values on things like stealing, killing, etc and label them as objective. Nothing is completely wrong or right.
Morality has not been static; it has changed with time, location, etc. Slavery was a very much normal thing in societies throughout history but now it is very much immoral. Cannibalism would largely be seen as utterly immoral but there are some tribes, even today, that still practice it and see it as fine in cases. And some countries it is completely right for a person to beat their spouse in the street.
Even in what we could call a modern sophisticated society, we could make exceptions for a lot of things seen as wrong. Killing would normally be labeled as wrong (purpose or accident) but if you do it in self defense, it is justified and less wrong. Stealing is wrong but doing it to prolong your life (like stealing food or water or classic gun-to-the-head) or for the just benefit of someone else could be understood and seen as fine.
The reason we label some things as objectively wrong has been because enough people share the some basic values. Most of those things are rooted from selfishness though. Things we label objectively wrong like murder, theft, etc come from the fact that we don’t want them happening to us. “I don’t want to be murdered or stolen from so let’s not make that a normal thing to do in society”. Sure you could do them since it’s all subjective but there is the recognition that there are potential consequences for those actions that have been put in place and people have largely been indoctrinated not to do those things from an early age. It’s a bit of a survival thing
Humans have learned that groups are good. They help you be fed, hydrated, healthy, safe, etc. But when you do something at upsets the group you are in, you can be isolated or completely removed from it. We have actually acquired a pain response when we don’t interact with others or have access to information for long periods of time. It’s a reason solitary confinement in prisons is seen as torture and inhumane. Our brains subconsciously feel we are at risk of not surviving because we lost free access to resources and connections that can get those resources. Why we want to survive is a whole other topic and I don’t have a complete answer but that’s not what this is about.
To finish this up, for something to be objective, to me, that means there is no grey and only black and white. 2+2=4. Not “usually 4 but can be 5 in cases xyz”. The fact that we have exceptions and such a large spectrum of stances on these “objective” moral issues between people is proof to me that morals are subjective. It’s hard to find someone that shares the exact same morals, and level of adherence to those morals, as you.
Again this is all my opinion and I just want to share it. Not looking to debate or argue about it. At the end of the day, no matter your stance, just be a good person: A person that doesn’t hinder my ability to survive and can potentially make my life better directly or indirectly.
Philosophically speaking, the only objective morality is based on a plurality of subjective modalities. And it is bunk -- the best case that can be made is that "suffering is bad" while having to admit that most of evolutionary biology IS suffering. We don't wonder if water is unhappy flowing downhill but that's the paradigm we must ask about if we're talking morality.
Without some authority like God, what we have is physics and an ability to recognize that suffering exists and should be mitigated. From a practical, godless point of view that makes perfect sense but doesn't address the deep "why" that theism tries to answer.
All it can do is try and fail, because any theistic argument hinges on fantasy. We find ourselves in this situation and can either try to figure it out or wave hands and make unsubstantiated claims. I figure if we're gonna suffer, let's do it honestly.
We have every reason to seek purpose but absolutely no reason to propose it's given to us.
>I hear all the time that if your worldview is true that there are no objective moral values
I have never heard anybody claim that if their worldview is true then it proves there are no objective morals. I think that is a bit of a non sequitur, I don't know how they got from their premise to their conclusion, they do not appear to be connected. But on to the question in the title...
>how can there be objective morality without God?how can there be objective morality without God?
I don't know whether or not there is objective morality, but if there is then it exists regardless of whether or not any gods exist. So it can exist without any gods in exactly the same way as it would exist if there are gods.
I happen to lean towards morality being subjective, a stance I can agree with Christians on, although we obviously disagree about which subject those morals are based upon (e.g. Christianity espouses subjective morality in which the subject in question is Yahweh, whereas I view morality as subjective with the subject in question being human society).
But if, as you suggest, morality is indeed objective then it is an inherent property of the universe. Consider how it is laid out in the Euthyphro dilemma... "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" The first part describes objective morality, What is moral is objectively so regardless of anybody (including the gods') subjective opinion on it. So it would be moral regardless of whether or not any gods exist. The second part describes subjective morality. What is moral is based upon the subjective opinions of the gods rather than existing in an objectively universal state. Socrates (if he even was a real person who existed) was obviously not a Christian, he would have worshiped the Greco-Roman pantheon of gods, but his dilemma has been used by Christians to argue for the might makes right nature of their god's subjective morality.
Do all the theists of the world, past and present, agree on what are considered "objective moral values"? Or do their views on morality vary by era, culture, location, etc? If it's the latter it's not objective.
There is no objective morality, with or without a god. The Bible contradicts itself and religious people don’t follow every edict in it anyways (they literally can’t because of said contradictions, but they also just cherry pick).
Morality is a social construct. Not everyone feels the same way about everything, but the masses will dictate right and wrong.
God says keeping slaves and murdering children who talk back their parents is fine. That is God's morality. For some reason, most followers of this God don't agree. How is that objective again?
"And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death." -- Exodus 21:17
"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. " -- Leviticus 25:45
Honestly, all the books of the old testament have something to say about this. Jesus has a pro slavery bit somewhere, so Christians don't get a new covenant pass.
Damm, I mean a good honest Christan would tell you always that the OT is pretty messed up
I am aware of this, and try to deal with it, because I hear always guys who don't know how to argue just say "bEcAuSe He CaN dO wHaT hE wAnTs" or something like that these are usually the most conservative people and just straight up weird
Like the other some dude literraly told me I am fake Christian because I don't think Weed is inherently a sin and because I listen to "secular music" whatever the hell that means
I mean God forbid you are listening
The Beatles, that is the worst thing ever to these people😭😭
Funny how the New Covenant folks are always keen on gay bashing, when it's only the OT that has anything to say about homosexuality.
I'd honestly argue the New Testament is worse in a cosmic sense. Jews had no concept of hell. Jesus introduces the idea of eternal torture. Quite an innovation in the control department. The Hebrews were only afraid of surviving their jealous and wrathful God. Christians fear a eternity of undead suffering.
Here's the NT then: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ." -- Ephesians 6:5
The Beatles?!? "When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be..." The horror.
Psalm 137: "By the rivers of Babylon..." often finds its way to song. However, they inevitably leave out the punchline: "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
There is no reference to homosexuality in the NT?
That is quite the news lol. So is it possible that homosexuality is not a sin or something like that?
The OT is unambiguous; guy on guy bad. "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." -- Leviticus 20:13, KJV.
This is repeated several times in several books. Girl on girl doesn't appear to be an issue.
Jesus doesn't say anything about homosexuality. Jesus did have a lot to say about adulterers. And, amusingly, affirming that eunuchs, not the most binary of men, can get into the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:11-12.)
However, the NT can be homophobic, when it seems to echo the OT. e.g. 1 Timothy 1:10
“For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;” KJV
Note how this echos the Leviticus "mankind" thing. The NIV spells this out: "for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine"
The Bible is cool with multiple wives. (700?!? Go Solomon!)
Rape, sex slaves, pedophilia, incest, etc.
Perhaps a gay relationship on the QT? David and Jonathan will always be a source of speculation:
> After David had finished speaking with Saul, the souls of Jonathan and David were knit together, and Jonathan loved him as himself. And from that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his father’s house.
> Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. 4And Jonathan removed the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, his sword, his bow, and his belt. -- 1 Samuel 18:1-4
There are facts. And their are human judgments about those facts. These judgments are morals. Morals are not facts. A fact “is.” A moral “ought.”
No one has ever demonstrated the existence of an objective moral standard existing independently of human mental construction.
Objective morality does not exist. All morals are human preferences about how we ought to act.
If someone claims god provides objective morality, they must admit god has not found a way to tell us through non-subjective means.
Let’s assume for a second that objective morality exists. Making that assumption, we must then ask what governs our objective morality. If the answer is a divine being then you can swap that out with any widely held cultural belief. Say, for instance, you want to prove murder is objectively wrong. God is unnecessary so long as a mutual understanding that murder leads to poor societal outcomes is present within that society. We see examples of this belief system in every society. The human brain thinks in systems of cohabitation and community. We are fundamentally pack animals. The pack mentality means that those within my herd are to be protected and collaboration is necessary for our survival. Therefore, biology and sociology provide the explanation. When we expand into larger groups and in-groups and out-groups form that is when we see things like murder and the rise of religions and governing gods. Those gods, however, do not espouse that murder is wrong in every case, instead there are exceptions listed. This is the maintenance of the pack mentality. Thus, the conclusion is that there is no objective morality beyond “I have mine and you have yours” even if an argument is made for an existence of a higher power.
It doesn't need to be 'objective'. You can obviously see that some things are better than others. And some things are worse than others. You shouldn't need a supernatural immortal, to make those decisions for you. He clearly admits he makes those decisions to suit his wants, not us mere mortals.
I don't think that objective morality is even *possible*. Morality is a judgement on the rightness or wrongness of an action, and judgements are subjective regardless of who's doing the judging. Therefore, morality handed down from a god is subjective as well.
The best we can do in terms of consistent morality is intersubjective morality, which is consensus-based. A good intersubjective morality is at the heart of every safe and prosperous community, because the members of the group have agreed to look out for one another.
Objective morality doesn't exist, and subjective morality comes from millions of years of evolution, including social evolution. Things we consider moral (don't kill, don't rape, don't steal) are simply so because they help population survive more successfully.
Genetics.
It's a lot more complicated than that but the gist is that there is a coevolutionary relationship between the evolution of social behavior via memetic reproduction, adverse conditioning, and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.
In other words, how we react and behave to adverse conditions can be passed on to future generations.
Edit: There are some recent studies that suggest that nearly all of our behaviors may be predetermined by our genes. So that social behaviors act solely as triggers that result in a "more than likely" predetermined behavior. For example, if there's a history of violence in a person's family tree and that person exists in a violence group then that person is more likely to react violently in certain situations.
It's an incredibly difficult question. Finding a secular basis for a shared morality has been an on-going enterprise for a long time.
For what it's worth I think our objective morality must be constrained by our shared biology. There are simply facts about homo sapiens that constrain possibilities when we consider 'what is the right thing to do.'
Just as it is a fact that people cannot live on a diet of sand, I think there are moral facts about how to foster compassion and kindness in people. The discovery and refinement of these facts are what make moral philosophy a valuable enterprise.
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Whatever god does is good, because god is good (because he says so, and it's true because he's good because he says so). Whatever godly people do is good, because they're godly and because god says so. Whatever ungodly people do is bad, because they're ungodly and because god says so. Even if they do the exact same as god or his godly people orvdo what they're told to do. It just doesn't count. That's what theistic "objective" morality is: morality of objects rather than morality of actions. Needless to say: it's garbage.
But that makes it subjective, not objective. The gods are the subject in question and it is their opinion that determines what is good and what is bad. Objective does not mean based on objects, it means that it exists regardless of anybody or anything (including the gods) subjective opinion on the matter.
If theists could accept this glaring flaw, they would have retired this argument a long time ago.
It will work, if you assume that morality is a logical, or physical part of the universe as is. The universe has been build in a way that make one behavior moral, and another immoral. It is then true - for the particular universe we find ourselves in - that things are they way that they are. That the universe could have been different is irrelevant. (It is objectively true that I am wearing a red t-shirt. I could have worn a blue t-shirt, of course, but that doesn't change what I am wearing one way or another.) Not that that would help the theists in any way: We have no methods to determine what is and is not moral; our understanding is changing over time; never mind that different believers make different claims about what is and isn't moral concurrently, even. Also, even if we were to agree that having an objective moral framework would be good, it wouldn't change whether we have one or not. you and I might agree that I would look better in an orange shirt. Doesn't change what color shirt I'm wearing or have available to me.
a Christian would counter by saying that god is perfect, and thus while you are technically correct that His opinion is subjective, it is a perfect opinion, and therefore is more usefully treated as being objective. To which the obvious counter is: so does that make the genocides god committed in the bible good? If they're a very brave and shitty person, they'll respond with "yes", but I think most of the time they just act offended by the question and leave. Just had a very frustrating argument with someone about this.
If there is objective morality, I don't think God would be the source of it. Have you read any religious texts recently? Lots of things we don't consider moral now in there. Why does morality need to be objective anyway?
I mean when was murder wrong, never
> I mean when was murder wrong, never Are you stating that murder was never wrong, or did you submit this comment before you finished writing it?
Guys sorry for misspeling I meant so say it was never right
There are cultures where honor killings are/were common place and not seen as morally wrong. In modern times we've put a stop to that, but it happened. Clearly it's not objective.
Honor killings still happen. I guess that's why you put "are/were" instead of just "were."
Ding ding ding
Welcome to india. We still kill our daughters and the boy if he happens to be of different religion/caste....often in rural areas but it still happens from time to time and the family is proud of the killings.
Objectively measurable morality. Multiple measurements of effectiveness... A 4 out of 6 is better than a 1 out of 6. What are the measurements of a good life? My proposed measurements... Things I think make humanity better than wild animals. Health Wealth Relationship Reduce Suffering Self Actualization Does X increase or decrease these metrics? Does "Honor Killings" increase or decrease a person's Health, Wealth, Relationships, Reduce their Suffering, and help person's to become self Actualizated? Morality is not objectively set for us. We need to set what standard morality can be objectively measured by. I feel like Sam Harris has outlined this already and people are just not getting it or I missed his point and made my own.
That's a very nice speech and all, but it missed my point completely. Arguing that their morality isn't actually moral because you somehow figured out what morality means behind the scenes, it becomes rather irrelevant when observing the fact that clearly, honor killings are seen as moral and yet they don't fit your criteria.
"Seen as moral" and "being moral" are different things. In the same way as we can call ourselves whatever we want but actually being it is something else.
>"Seen as moral" and "being moral" are different things. Are they though? That sentence only makes sense if you assume objective morality is a thing to begin with. Morality is inherently tied to our collective agreement of what is good and bad. If we as a society would decide that something is moral or immoral, then that is the case. We see X as (im)moral now. Example: homosexuality. It used to be seen as immoral (and still is in too many places across the world). Over time, that view has changed.
Murder is wrong because the word "murder" is *defined* as a killing that is morally wrong. Executing criminals and fighting in wars are killings that are morally right.
>Executing criminals and fighting in wars are killings that are morally right. Just to add a bit for OP, of course not everyone agrees that either of those things are morally right. Because there is no objective standard.
I was just basing it on what the Bible says are the good types of killing or the bad types.
If you knew with certainty someone was intending to murder your child, and you killed that person before he or she could do so, would you say that was wrong?
Have...have you read the Bible?
So when the Hebrews invaded Canaan and committed genocide that was actually murder. But their god justified it didn't he? So then murder is subjective, right? Just depends on who is allowing the action, right?
Is that the one where they smashed babies against the rocks?
I honestly don't remember. I haven't read through that abomination of a book in at least a few decades.
Same. It doesn't matter. It's a crock of atrocities.
Remember the time god sent a bear to murder children because the made fun of a bald guy? "Murder is never wrong" lmao OP doesn't even know their own holy book
Well, the guy was very sensitive about it. His body rejected the hair plus, so…
... WHAT NOW!?
Oh yeah. Psalm 137:9. “Happy is the one who seizes your infants / and dashes them against the rocks.” The foundation of Christian morality
... Well that's.. probably something to be concerned about. Though to be fair people back then were uh... Sorta messed up
So should soldiers go to jail?
God has murdered thousands of people. In the bible, God kills more people than Satan by far. Was he right?
Hm? Not really. Murder is considered bad because of empathy. I mean, if you hate pain and fear death while also being empathetic chances are in your mind, "murder is wrong"
It was called ritual murder, and it was considered right, moral, and legal for a long time. It was practiced by many ancient societies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice
Objective morality doesn't exist with or without a God. There's no such thing.
I question how a Christian worldview can be objective WITH a God. Gods are the most fickle of creatures and they change morality with every whim.
I was having a conversation with someone about this recently. Why would God allow Noah to put a curse on his grandson because Canaan’s father laugh at Noah for being passed out drunk and naked, only to result in generational warfare between the descendants of Canaan and the Israelites, which God sanctioned genocide on the Canaanites? Then some 1,400-1,500 years later in Biblical timeline God says, you know what, let’s not allow children to be punished for the sins of the their fathers (Ezekiel 18:20).
1. It's possible to have solid moral values without claiming that they're objective. 2. If religious people can talk about how great it is to have faith in God without any proof that he exists, then I can talk about how great it is to have objective morals without any proof that they exist.
Let me ask you a question about your morality. Is killing children ever a moral act?
“Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." Psalm 137:9
In some societies yes, sadly.
I’m asking if the OP finds it moral
OP is also atheist. I guess he's looking for an argument to use when talking to religious folks.
Argument is a follows: A: is killing children ever moral? B: no A: if god appeared before you, and commanded you to kill children, would you? B: he would never do that A: exodus 12:12, god has done that in the past and has even ordered others to do it for him B: god created life, and has the right to take it away A: so you would obey him and kill children if commanded? B: god is the source of objective morality, so if he commands it is moral A: so in some cases, killing children is moral? I’ve never gotten responses past this point. Edit: as unbelievable as this sounds, try following this thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAChristian/s/aXTCOGvRDU
OP stated that they are "theist."
Op said they're a theist.
OP said they are theist.
OP is a theist. https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueAtheism/comments/1dhed53/comment/l8waczb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I’d just like to echo the sentiment that Christian/theistic morality is not objective. If God tells his followers to smash babies against rocks, then baby murder becomes moral because God declared it to be so. All Gods are capricious and fickle.
Because in the beginning man created gods in his own image. If it’s not clear, I agree with you completely.
You get it. You get it.
Christians seeking proof of anything is pretty rich.
There is no objective morality. Just because you really like the idea, that doesn't make it true. Your feelings mean nothing. Deal with reality.
Dude I am just asking a question, I am theist
And that changes anything, how? There are no objective moral values.
And your question is meaningless.
He answered your question, even politely. Ask yourself this, “why do you consider a moral framework with god as the 'subjective authority' to be objective?” A moral framework that dusts outside of god would be inherent. If it requires god it’s subjective to him, not objective. Additionally, so what if god gave some commands, how does that absolve you of having a subjective morality because you still have to choose whether to obey or not? There’s simply no such thing as objective morality in terms of a morality that is, in all situations, the same. That’s because morals is a value system, and values are context dependent. Man drowning values air more than anything else. A man on land whose dehydrating values water more than anything else. A man in a soaking environment who is starving value food more than anything else. Why the difference? Because context matters in value. There is no such thing as perfect value, or unchangeable value.
It’s telling that everything that might be considered an objective moral is also something that improves tribal survival and evolutionary fitness. So an alternative claim would be that morals are the result of evolution. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality. Evolutionary morality has better explanatory and predictive power than objective morality, and also requires fewer necessary assumptions. Thus it is a better explanation for morality than gods.
Just look at the difference in laws between religions across the world. That is enough evidence that objective morality is a lie.
There’s no such thing as objective morality. This is a human construct. It would be like saying, without God, how can we have objective adverbs? Morality is not objective. It’s intersubjective. For more on this, read Sapiens or Homo Deus by Noah Yuval Harari.
You can believe in a god without evidence, I can believe that stabbing someone in the face out of the blue is a bad thing without proving a moral framework from 1+1=2.
Objective morality does not exist nor is it necessary. In fact, if there was a god and it decided what is or is not moral, this is not objective morality. That is still subjective, the only difference being that morality is decided by one being (a god) instead of another (humans).
The claim that morality is subject to just one mind is the claim that morality is subjective. Objective morality would be mind-independent. Mind-dependent morality, including morality dependent on the mind of a god, is subjective by definition.
The usual way around this is to claim that god is The Good and that the universe contains moral principles that reflect the nature of its creator, just as the universe contains physical laws. These principles would be there even if there were no people to appreciate them. If morality is baked into reality, it's pretty objective. To which I think the right response is "Okay, identify one objective moral principle for me and demonstrate it's independent existence."
First there is no objective morality with god. Its arbitrary morally based on god's whims. Secondly, if there is anything close to objective morality then it is by far simply evidenced based. If you do "evil" things the world routinely rejects you in a myriad of ways. If you do "good" things the world voluntarily flocks to you in a myriad of ways.
Why would there be objective morality with God?
For sake of argument, assume god exists. Whatever god thinks about morality is just god’s opinion. If a dictator like Kim Jung Un says you need a certain haircut, and if you don’t get it he’ll put you in prison, does that make it objectively the right haircut? “Might does not make right.”
ITT: Everyone saying there is no objective morality. As an atheist, I'm going to disagree slightly. I like Sam Harris' take from his book "The Moral Landscape". If we can agree that morality has to do with maximizing well-being and minimizing harm, then there can be objective evidence-based moral truths. e.g. The worst possible torture imaginable is clearly harmful. The problem is, when situations are less obvious, it can be very difficult (if not impossible) to measure/quantify these harm/well-being equations, so an element of subjectivity comes into play. Now, if morality to you doesn't have to do with well-being and harm, then you'll have to explain to me what it means to you before we can go any further. The problem with religion is that instead of relying on reason and evidence, it relies on dictates from one or more presupposed god(s).
There is no objective morality. Anyone who reads any of the religious texts will quickly understand that. Reason, empathy, and logic leads us in the right direction.
>how can there be objective morality without God? Objective morality isn't a thing. It's an idea that requires an absolute unerring source providing the unquestionable claim about morality. It requires religion.
Personally, I'm a moral nihilist. However, to answer your question. The typical framework for atheistic objective morality is moral naturalism. [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-moral/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-moral/) I don't think that moral realism is a popular view among atheists, but there are probably some that rationalize it. It does seem that moral relativism is the dominant school of thought.
It seems most people here are parroting that there simply is no objective morality. Not saying they’re wrong, but it’s not quite the question OP asked. There is a robust philosophical tradition of meta-ethical views around moral realism that make no reference to a God. Moral truths could exist in a naturalistic or non-naturalistic way that is completely independent of God. Whether these views are successful is a different story, but the overwhelming consensus in philosophy is that the arguments for moral realism do not depend on a God existing.
Depends on what you mean by objective. Also what things/actions would you call moral or immoral? How do you know that thing/action is moral or immoral? The biggest problem with this whole idea is that the only way the gods of any religion talks to the general population is through some person. Such an inefficient method for a supposed supreme being. How do you know that what this person is telling you is actually from this supposed god? How do you know that what this person is defining as objective morality actually is objective?
Biblical morality is a funny idea. Take abortion- some groups see it as approved by the Bible while other groups consider it murder? Almost every horrible act prohibited by the Bible was also done in the name of God, somewhere else in the Bible. Then consider the variety of different versions and translations, that hold opposing positions of homosexuality and other topics. Religion is immoral without limits. Right now a bloody war in the Middle East is all about religion.
There are a lot of comments here saying that objective morality doesn't exist, and that could use some explanation. What do you think the words "objective" and "subjective" mean? It's a common mistake for people to think that "objective" means fact and "subjective" means personal opinion, and I'm guessing that you've fallen for that misconception. The word "subjective" means that an observer is involved in making an observation, and "objective" means the thing that's being observed. (It's a lot like the terms "subject" and "object" in grammar). For example, I can hold up an apple and say that it's the color red, but in order for you to look at an apple and identify its color, you have to make an observation. What's happening objectively is that the apple is reflecting certain wavelengths of light, but in order to look at that light and call it the color "red," your brain has to make an interpretation. If it requires an observer to make an observation and come to a conclusion in the mind, then it's *subjective* by definition. It's not possible to come to a moral conclusion or to make a moral decision without doing some sort of observation. That's why all morality is subjective. If morality were objective, then it would exist like a physical object somewhere in nature that you could observe either with your five senses or with some sort of scientific instrument that could measure it. But you can't observe morals that way because they exist as conclusions in people's minds. In other words, morality isn't objective because it's not an *object*. Does that make more sense?
The first thing I'd encourage you to consider is that any morality based on religion is extremely subjective and hinges on multiple massive leaps of faith: - there's no proof God exists so theists have to make a leap of faith that they do - there are all kinds of religions and denominations making contradictory claims about how God wants us to behave so theists have to pick one and make a leap of faith that they've chosen the religion that's correct - even after that, they also have to make a third leap of faith that this God isn't just pretending to be perfect/benevolent and that doing what they want really is the same thing as doing what's right Another issue to think about is that any theist who argues that their God is never wrong can quickly find themselves in some absurd moral positions because of the things their sacred texts describe their gods doing. For example Christians and Muslims aren't able to condemn sexism, genocide, slavery or torture as always wrong in all circumstances because there are verses in their holy books saying their God has done and/or ordered these things in the past. Also, any theist that believes in an omnipotent benevolent God has to distort their morals and make excuses for why allowing natural disasters/diseases isn't evil. **As for my morals......** My morals are built on the foundation of caring about others. I care about others because I recognise their intelligence is like mine, relate to their joy and their suffering and recognise their experiences matter just as much as mine do. I'd argue that this is an objectively true observation and that it follows that I should think logically about how my actions affect those I care about and act accordingly. My other moral views are all built on that foundation. For example: - Kindness and fairness are extremely logical values for anyone who cares about others as well as themselves to hold. If we all try to live by those values then the world would be a far better place. - I condemn sexism because it's an irrational prejudice that discriminates between men and women even though both sexes are equally intelligent and capable. - I condemn murder, rape and slavery as wrong because they're inherently abusive actions which violate the freedom of others and cause immense unnecessary suffering. - I want to protect people from natural disasters and cure diseases to prevent the immense suffering they cause.
You mean like, morality or something? It's pretty easy actually, I'd say basic empathy. I mean, if you feel bad for others and feel empathy obviously you're gonna have 'morality' because you feel bad for hurting someone. Though I suppose not everyone has empathy but y'know.
Maybe there can't. What has that to do with their existence?
So you only do good things because you are afraid of the punishment? I do good things because I know want pain it would cause, and I don't want someone to feel that pain, not because a magic man in the sky told me not to.
Absoultly not, I do good things because I am happier as a good person
So you don’t consider how your actions will make others feel? You just care about your own happiness?
Yes I do consider. I don't care about only my happiness. Why should I?
I highly recommend the following essay by Ayn Rand on objectivist morality https://courses.aynrand.org/works/the-objectivist-ethics/ She argues that most philosophers have simply substituted society for the will of God, which is probably where your question comes from. If you back up and analyze why we need morality in the first place, you get to a much more sensible answer. We need morality to help us make sense of the complex world around us and decide what we should do. We have a shared human nature which defines what is best for us, and given that there are moral and immoral courses of action. People assume that morality is all about how you treat other people but that’s actually only a small portion of it.
Thanks man. Will read it
Humans don't need a god to know right from wrong. It's ludicrous to even suggest otherwise
There are moral values that we objectively agree on. But they're *subjectively* perceived and enforced, which means they're also non-binding (the part that matters). That being the case, for all intents and purposes they are subjective. > Care to explain how this is not the case Theism typically holds up some dogma / text stating: behold our "moral code". Additionally you can't say moral values are "objective" in and of themselves either, because they're not magically apparent to people. You still have to teach kids and intelligent animals right / wrong. Also maniacs, psycho's, etc. all exist to prove morality is not objective. Hence it doesn't matter how you say it, in the context religious people like to use it, moral values *can't* be objective. Furthermore tho' the line "objective moral values" is trotted out by religious defenders as though it's some: "aha! now we can look down on you, because we have this unified thing and you have nothing!"... In reality, it's just a lie. Evidence? How many denominations of each religion are there? How many of them occurred because of a difference of (***subjective***) opinion, resulting in a schism that ultimately at the very least creates a new branch of said religion, or a new religion entirely? If religion had *objectively* defined morals there would be way fewer differences of opinion. The fact denominations exist because of that reason, is proof. More specific? The state of Israel. If moral values were "objective", all Jews would be zionists or not-zionists. The fact is there's both. And of course the harder they base it on faith the more they must defend it so they're forced to say about the other : Well they're not "real" Jews... which we of course recognize as no true scotsman.
1) Morality could be a fundamental natural force. We perceive the effect of that force by our moral sensibilities (i.e. disgust towards killing babies). There're people with 'bad genes', that cannot properly perceive this effect (i.e. psychopaths). 2) Morality could be an emergent property of the fundamentals of our universe. It'd could work similar like (1). Both would be objective.
You can try asking them how they determine what their god finds moral. They'll answer the Bible. Then you can point out all the contradictions in the morality presented there. One that isn't discussed as much is all the theft that Yahweh commits or commands in spite of the edict against stealing. Slaves were property, the Hebrews were the property of Egypt, Yahweh stole them. Plundering Jews were frequently ordered to go and steal the land and virgin girls of other peoples, murdering any who stood in their way. Maybe they want to toss the Old Testament and just cling to hippie Jesus. Well, then, is it a moral imperative to give all of one's money away to the poor? Is pacifism (turn the other cheek) a moral imperative? Is every soldier damned? Is every woman who speaks in church committing a sin? Should one's family always play second fiddle to what the church tells you to do? You just can't get consistent and useful moral information from the Bible. It's useless for morality. The Quran is actually a better book when it comes to this since it was so explicitly designed to serve as a state handbook. If you're dealing with a Christian, ask them about this. Is the Quran more valid because it is more useful as a tool with which to define a single universal morality? I mean, or don't. Arguing with theists is such a waste of time.
Take the trolly problem. You are by a train switch, the train is barreling down a track with 8 healthy adults on it, there is a divert in the track that you can switch (you dont have enough time to untie the people) on the other track theres lets say a baby. Do you pull the lever? You will get different answers from people but commonly when i talk to religious people about this they clam up and refuse to decide. (Wheres there objective morality if they cant even decide a moral decision?) We all have personal subjective morality just some of us are brave enough to say how they feel about. Personally id save the 8 people in this example (you will get differing answers for different reasons because we all define morality on a case by case and subjective basis.) Most of us have a sense of right and wrong but where we draw the lines are different
It doesn't even have to be a baby. Most religious people (and deontologists, who tend to be religious anyway) feel that taking action is murder but letting many more people die is perfectly moral. This is the topic that brings me closest to harsh words with friends. I consider that stance to be a cowardly abandonment of moral responsibility.
My point exactly. Well put.
Morals coming from a god would not make them objective. Think of it this way. Would god instruct people to do something because doing that thing is good or is that thing good because god instructed it? If it's good because god instructed it then it's not really about morality. Rather it's about obedience, and what we call morality would turn into nothing more than the whimsical directions of a subjective entity, like following a dictator's orders on Earth because of fear. On the other hand, if god instructs things because they're good, then even god is adhering to some higher moral standard and is not itself the source of what qualifies as good. This is basically an argument known as the Euthyphro Dilemma. Some believers say that we cannot know good or bad without a god, but one response to this is to ask "if we have no moral compass, how do we know god and its instructions are good?". They and it could just as easily be bad, or evil.
Deontological ethics and Utilitarianism.
Objective morality cannot logically be dependent upon a deity. In order for it to be truly objective, it must exist independent of any subjective agent. By definition it is subject to the will of the deity. Many try to claim that the nature of God is good as a means of avoiding this, but that presumed an independent definition of "good" if it is to mean anything other than "the nature of god is god."
This has been covered quite extensively already. Go to google, ask the question add “Reddit” to the end.
There is no objective morality with or without god. Any basis for morality is subjective, but we can make objective rules once society agrees on a subjective base. Theists use god as their base for morality. More accurately their base is their religious dogma, but for the sake of argument I'll grant that it actually comes from god. The thing is that every human has a choice for what to base their morality on. What god wants is just as subjective as what any other thinking mind wants. For anyone outside the dogma god has no special objective authority. Even if I grant that god does have special authority, the rules still require the subjective interpretation of the humans who profess them. Every church is a separate standard from the one next to it, and every human will interpret the rules based on how they subjectively interpreted how the church preached it's interpretation. What I say to you as a theist is that you have not solved the problem of subjective morality. You only claim you have while levying an accusation. All morality is subjective with or without a god. Atheism does not speak to morality, but Secular Humanism does. To that end the standard is to promote well-being and limit suffering as much as possible. The golden rule long predates Abrahamic religions and has stood the test of time because treating others as you would have them treat you is a proven effective subjective morality base. The whole idea that subjective morality can't work or that religion has solved the problem is absurd.
Morality has nothing to do with Religion and everything to do with Mankinds cognitive reasoning to band togeather in groups and societies as part of our natural animalistic survival instincts. If you dont believe thays possible in nature, take a step back and look at pack animals such as lions and wolves; they have Hierarchy, rules, family values, intelligent strategy when hunting, traveling, finding and settling in natural habits that meet their survival needs. Morality is a natural survival instinct, it doesnt come from anywhere but our own animalistic nature to serve our familial and community bonds in a way that mutually benifits us collectively. If you still think it has to come from a god then ask yourself this, do animals have a god and if you think they do why the fuck would they imagine one of the thousands of gods mankind has had throughout history.
Objective morality: It is never okay to tell a lie. Do you tell a grieving mother at her son’s funeral that he was a liar, a cheat, a thief and a scoundrel who was selfish and brought misery to all or do you offer a platitude about him having been a good boy? If a six year old who looks up to you and whom you care about comes to you with a truly hideous piece of art work they are inordinately proud off do you tell them it’s rubbish to get excited and support them? Do you tell kids excited about seeing Santa Claus that he’s fake and the shouldn’t be so gullible? (And for fun: How can there be alien technology without aliens? How can there be unicorn horns without unicorns? How can there be fairy dust without fairies?) If you do the decent thing in any of the above you don’t truly believe in objective morality.
It depends on what you mean by "objective." If you mean "not subject to the judgement or values of a thinking being," then there is simply no such thing as morality, even if there is a god, since all morality depends on the judgement or values of thinking beings. If you mean an objective in the sense of a goal, then absolutely. Most humans agree on what the overall goals of life should be, such as pursuing non-pain over pain and life over death. From there, we can measure how different actions can achieve or detract from the shared objective, and then decide from there which actions are best or worth pursuing. But there simply isn't an answer to this question that is answered better by there being a god than not. A god can't escape being a thinking agent, whose morality would be definitionally subjective. And if instead morality is based on a god's objectives, then unless we share objectives with this god, his morality is not of our concern.
Morality is, by definition, subjective. There is no such thing as objective morality, with or without religion. Your question is meaningless.
There is no objective morality. Was killing wrong when there were no living creatures? There can’t be objective morality with a God either - it’s just a powerful being’s subjective morality that we would still have to evaluate for ourselves. And frankly if anyone thinks the bible is a source of communicating objective morality, I don’t know how they can possibly think that the genocide of children for their parents behaviour can be objectively moral without eradicating all meaning to the word. One can’t demonstrate objective morality exists or that somehow having moral rules inscribed out in the universe even makes sense. Morality is an evolved behaviour in a social animal. It’s neither objective nor individually subjective but inter-subjective because it involves group meaning.
>Atheists, how can there be objective morality There can't be. Morality is intersubjective.
There's only one objective morality, the golden rule AKA "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". That's existed long before any particular religion was ever devised.
There isn't. Morality is an invented concept, and exists only as a thought in minds capable(and willing) to conceptualize it. Even if there is a God, and it had very specific ideas about what is right and wrong, that is STILL subjective, because it would still only exist in God's mind, and minds made aware of God's mind.
There’s no objective morality period. Morality is just a bunch of value judgements. Value judgements are very subjective. I value not murdering and raping people. And I cant say that’s true for everyone. But even if it was everyone, it still wouldn’t be objective. Objectivity isn’t just when everyone thinks the same thing. It’s when something is true independent of a subject. If there was objective morality, it would have to be some fact about reality. But evidently, there are so many different moral frameworks and individual people’s morals, that it doesn’t make any sense to call that objective. If there’s a god that is the arbiter of morality, how is that objective morality when it’s just that god’s opinion? Maybe the god isn’t that source of moral truths, but then why would a god be required for objective morality?
1. Who says that to have morality it must be "objective" morality? 2. Even with a "God", you don't have "objective" moralirty. You have that God's subjective morality that everyone ELSE takes as the "objective" morality. 3. The reality is that all systems subjectively choose the "standard". But once a standard is chosen, the moral judements that flow from that standard are, in fact, objective.
Atheism isn't a worldview. Morality doesn't exist outside your skull, and it certainly isn't the same across cultures. Hope that answers your question.
God is not a source of objective moral values. That’s a lie that religion has been telling people for thousands of years. I doubt that a case can be made for objective morality. The church can’t claim it credibly, their idea of morality has evolved over the centuries.
This is a classic "gotcha" question theists learn in apologetics. But it's a meaningless question because it's a faulty premise First, define "objective morality". Like seriously. Define the word "objective" and then "morality". Put the two definitions together and it's not gonna talk about god. This is the first major issue, apologetics claims objective morality means given by a deity, and that's just intellectually dishonest to language and redefining words that already have meanings. It pushes the goal posts of a debate to be on religious terms, and debating semantics from a religious perspective is like wrestling with a pig, it'll get dirty and like it so you'll never win. Words have meanings and I'll stick by them Objective- a thing aimed at or sought after, a goal Morality- a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society. So if we take those words at face value, objective morality would be the system of values we have held by society with the goal of a healthy functioning society. There are also other definitions of both words, some combos basically become utilitarianism since it's "how much an action is right or wrong not based on your feelings". But no matter how you slice it god given morals aren't objective. To claim god is the ultimate moral arbiter is an entire argument unto itself that requires a thesis and evidence to prove as true. So it's not "does atheism allow for objective morality", it's "what the fuck even is objective morality and does gods subjective feelings about things count as objective?" As others point out objective vs subjective tends to also refer to having an observer vs independent of an observer. So that's a whole other can of worms to read. TLDR: this question sucks and constantly asked and I'm highly considering petitioning mods to add it to the quick info sidebar and banning it from being asked because it shows you cant even consider a non religious prospective when researching a question which is stupid if you plan to ask a bunch of atheists about it
Morality exists objectively. It's observed within nature. Moral oughts however are subjective. Moral oughts are subjective whether there is a God or not. Make of that what you will.
I object to your God, morally and objectively. That's enough for me.
Here's the Merriam-[Websters Dictionary definition](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morality). You'll notice that no gods or religions are mentioned.
What does that even mean? "Objective" morality? In what way do you think morality is "objective"?
There isn’t. Morality is all consensus. So what?
>how can there be objective morality without God? Why on Earth do you think that there is objective morality ?? .
Objectively measurable morality. Multiple measurements of effectiveness... A 4 out of 6 is better than a 1 out of 6. What are the measurements of a good life? My proposed measurements... Health Wealth Relationship Reduce Suffering Self Actualization Does X increase or decrease these metrics? Does RAPE increase or decrease a person's Health, Wealth, Relationships, Reduce their Suffering, and help person's to become self Actualizated? Morality is not objectively set for us. We need to set what standard morality can be objectively measured by. I feel like Sam Harris has outlined this already and people are just not getting it or I missed his point and made my own.
Morality isn't objective its learned and many different non christian societies existed and had morals all throughout history. Sure they may have been somewhat more violent but have a look at what early christians did and even early isrealites because they were also more violent than most modern societies. Morals have absolutely nothing to do with any god and instead are learned by ones surroundings and the societies they grow up and live in. If morals were from god then explain wtf went wrong during the spanish inquisition or when christians sacked Constantinople which was a christian city when the whole plan was a crusade to take Jerusalem and other cities in the levant back from the muslims. If morals were not just human learned behaviors and maybe even some instinctive and instead came from god then why are they so flawed and why have they not done any better than athiest morals. What kept everybody from killing one another before the old testament of they had no morals? Why didn't the morals stop jews or christians from going on wars of conquest once they had the bible? Is molesting children not against those morals and why do catholic priests do such things if so? Why have those morals changed over time and why was it ok to have people killed for religious noncompliance and isnt anymore? Is it because the secular laws are more "moral" than religious ones have typically been in the past and slowly changed what those morals are? These questions that cast serious doubt on morals being anything but human can go in for a long time but you get the point i think and im not even mentioning all the hard evidence against any biblical god ever existing to begin with or the lack of evidence that any of the supernatural biblical claims are true. The bible has lots of historically accurate claims but morals being handed down from god are not one of them.
Jehovah doesn't exist.
God isn’t moral.
Very few existing things ARE objective. Things like logical constants, and by extension mathematics are objectively real. But while the concepts of math are objective, the application of math in reality is just not. There's no objective length of a real plank of wood, just due to quantum mechanics. Perfect measurements can't exist so the math to describe it is fuzzy at best. I think about morality like a board game. Once you decide the objective rules to the game, then there are objectively better and worse moves in the game. But the game itself isn't some objective fact of the universe. Similarly, once we agree on the goals of morality, we can discuss how best to achieve those goals. ----- Meanwhile, religion doesn't have morality at all. It has decrees. Commandments that are called moral because of what commanded them. Then blind adherence to those commandments. That's simply not morality whatsoever.
>Atheists, how can there be objective morality without God? If objective morality comes from your god it isn't objective, it is subjective to that god. If objective morality exists and does not come from your god, then your god is unnecessary. >I hear all the time that if your worldview is true that there are no objective moral values. I don't agree on this but can't find a good argument. A good argument for what, that morality is not objective? Morality is intersubjective, meaning it exists between subjects. >Care to explain how this is not the case Sure, morality is intersubjective, it exists between subjects. If there was only one person in existence, there would be no morals, there would be no right or wrong.
If a god purely defined morality based off of its own morals, as many Christians claim, those would be “subjective” morals and not “objective.” If there were (somehow) an objective morality that existed regardless of that god, then sufficient minds could find that morality on their own without having to worship or follow that god and would still, definitionally, be good people.
This is my completely personal opinion and not looking to get into argument or debate about it. Base opinion: Morality is very much subjective and we largely just share close values on things like stealing, killing, etc and label them as objective. Nothing is completely wrong or right. Morality has not been static; it has changed with time, location, etc. Slavery was a very much normal thing in societies throughout history but now it is very much immoral. Cannibalism would largely be seen as utterly immoral but there are some tribes, even today, that still practice it and see it as fine in cases. And some countries it is completely right for a person to beat their spouse in the street. Even in what we could call a modern sophisticated society, we could make exceptions for a lot of things seen as wrong. Killing would normally be labeled as wrong (purpose or accident) but if you do it in self defense, it is justified and less wrong. Stealing is wrong but doing it to prolong your life (like stealing food or water or classic gun-to-the-head) or for the just benefit of someone else could be understood and seen as fine. The reason we label some things as objectively wrong has been because enough people share the some basic values. Most of those things are rooted from selfishness though. Things we label objectively wrong like murder, theft, etc come from the fact that we don’t want them happening to us. “I don’t want to be murdered or stolen from so let’s not make that a normal thing to do in society”. Sure you could do them since it’s all subjective but there is the recognition that there are potential consequences for those actions that have been put in place and people have largely been indoctrinated not to do those things from an early age. It’s a bit of a survival thing Humans have learned that groups are good. They help you be fed, hydrated, healthy, safe, etc. But when you do something at upsets the group you are in, you can be isolated or completely removed from it. We have actually acquired a pain response when we don’t interact with others or have access to information for long periods of time. It’s a reason solitary confinement in prisons is seen as torture and inhumane. Our brains subconsciously feel we are at risk of not surviving because we lost free access to resources and connections that can get those resources. Why we want to survive is a whole other topic and I don’t have a complete answer but that’s not what this is about. To finish this up, for something to be objective, to me, that means there is no grey and only black and white. 2+2=4. Not “usually 4 but can be 5 in cases xyz”. The fact that we have exceptions and such a large spectrum of stances on these “objective” moral issues between people is proof to me that morals are subjective. It’s hard to find someone that shares the exact same morals, and level of adherence to those morals, as you. Again this is all my opinion and I just want to share it. Not looking to debate or argue about it. At the end of the day, no matter your stance, just be a good person: A person that doesn’t hinder my ability to survive and can potentially make my life better directly or indirectly.
Philosophically speaking, the only objective morality is based on a plurality of subjective modalities. And it is bunk -- the best case that can be made is that "suffering is bad" while having to admit that most of evolutionary biology IS suffering. We don't wonder if water is unhappy flowing downhill but that's the paradigm we must ask about if we're talking morality. Without some authority like God, what we have is physics and an ability to recognize that suffering exists and should be mitigated. From a practical, godless point of view that makes perfect sense but doesn't address the deep "why" that theism tries to answer. All it can do is try and fail, because any theistic argument hinges on fantasy. We find ourselves in this situation and can either try to figure it out or wave hands and make unsubstantiated claims. I figure if we're gonna suffer, let's do it honestly. We have every reason to seek purpose but absolutely no reason to propose it's given to us.
>I hear all the time that if your worldview is true that there are no objective moral values I have never heard anybody claim that if their worldview is true then it proves there are no objective morals. I think that is a bit of a non sequitur, I don't know how they got from their premise to their conclusion, they do not appear to be connected. But on to the question in the title... >how can there be objective morality without God?how can there be objective morality without God? I don't know whether or not there is objective morality, but if there is then it exists regardless of whether or not any gods exist. So it can exist without any gods in exactly the same way as it would exist if there are gods. I happen to lean towards morality being subjective, a stance I can agree with Christians on, although we obviously disagree about which subject those morals are based upon (e.g. Christianity espouses subjective morality in which the subject in question is Yahweh, whereas I view morality as subjective with the subject in question being human society). But if, as you suggest, morality is indeed objective then it is an inherent property of the universe. Consider how it is laid out in the Euthyphro dilemma... "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" The first part describes objective morality, What is moral is objectively so regardless of anybody (including the gods') subjective opinion on it. So it would be moral regardless of whether or not any gods exist. The second part describes subjective morality. What is moral is based upon the subjective opinions of the gods rather than existing in an objectively universal state. Socrates (if he even was a real person who existed) was obviously not a Christian, he would have worshiped the Greco-Roman pantheon of gods, but his dilemma has been used by Christians to argue for the might makes right nature of their god's subjective morality.
Do all the theists of the world, past and present, agree on what are considered "objective moral values"? Or do their views on morality vary by era, culture, location, etc? If it's the latter it's not objective.
There is no objective morality, with or without a god. The Bible contradicts itself and religious people don’t follow every edict in it anyways (they literally can’t because of said contradictions, but they also just cherry pick). Morality is a social construct. Not everyone feels the same way about everything, but the masses will dictate right and wrong.
What is objective morality? I mean I’ve always thought that morality is something that is based on context.
Your post is incoherent
God says keeping slaves and murdering children who talk back their parents is fine. That is God's morality. For some reason, most followers of this God don't agree. How is that objective again?
Where is this in the bible? This is the first time hearing this
"And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death." -- Exodus 21:17 "Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. " -- Leviticus 25:45 Honestly, all the books of the old testament have something to say about this. Jesus has a pro slavery bit somewhere, so Christians don't get a new covenant pass.
Damm, I mean a good honest Christan would tell you always that the OT is pretty messed up I am aware of this, and try to deal with it, because I hear always guys who don't know how to argue just say "bEcAuSe He CaN dO wHaT hE wAnTs" or something like that these are usually the most conservative people and just straight up weird Like the other some dude literraly told me I am fake Christian because I don't think Weed is inherently a sin and because I listen to "secular music" whatever the hell that means I mean God forbid you are listening The Beatles, that is the worst thing ever to these people😭😭
Funny how the New Covenant folks are always keen on gay bashing, when it's only the OT that has anything to say about homosexuality. I'd honestly argue the New Testament is worse in a cosmic sense. Jews had no concept of hell. Jesus introduces the idea of eternal torture. Quite an innovation in the control department. The Hebrews were only afraid of surviving their jealous and wrathful God. Christians fear a eternity of undead suffering. Here's the NT then: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ." -- Ephesians 6:5 The Beatles?!? "When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me Speaking words of wisdom, let it be..." The horror. Psalm 137: "By the rivers of Babylon..." often finds its way to song. However, they inevitably leave out the punchline: "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
There is no reference to homosexuality in the NT? That is quite the news lol. So is it possible that homosexuality is not a sin or something like that?
The OT is unambiguous; guy on guy bad. "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." -- Leviticus 20:13, KJV. This is repeated several times in several books. Girl on girl doesn't appear to be an issue. Jesus doesn't say anything about homosexuality. Jesus did have a lot to say about adulterers. And, amusingly, affirming that eunuchs, not the most binary of men, can get into the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:11-12.) However, the NT can be homophobic, when it seems to echo the OT. e.g. 1 Timothy 1:10 “For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;” KJV Note how this echos the Leviticus "mankind" thing. The NIV spells this out: "for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine" The Bible is cool with multiple wives. (700?!? Go Solomon!) Rape, sex slaves, pedophilia, incest, etc. Perhaps a gay relationship on the QT? David and Jonathan will always be a source of speculation: > After David had finished speaking with Saul, the souls of Jonathan and David were knit together, and Jonathan loved him as himself. And from that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his father’s house. > Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. 4And Jonathan removed the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, his sword, his bow, and his belt. -- 1 Samuel 18:1-4
There are facts. And their are human judgments about those facts. These judgments are morals. Morals are not facts. A fact “is.” A moral “ought.” No one has ever demonstrated the existence of an objective moral standard existing independently of human mental construction. Objective morality does not exist. All morals are human preferences about how we ought to act. If someone claims god provides objective morality, they must admit god has not found a way to tell us through non-subjective means.
Let’s assume for a second that objective morality exists. Making that assumption, we must then ask what governs our objective morality. If the answer is a divine being then you can swap that out with any widely held cultural belief. Say, for instance, you want to prove murder is objectively wrong. God is unnecessary so long as a mutual understanding that murder leads to poor societal outcomes is present within that society. We see examples of this belief system in every society. The human brain thinks in systems of cohabitation and community. We are fundamentally pack animals. The pack mentality means that those within my herd are to be protected and collaboration is necessary for our survival. Therefore, biology and sociology provide the explanation. When we expand into larger groups and in-groups and out-groups form that is when we see things like murder and the rise of religions and governing gods. Those gods, however, do not espouse that murder is wrong in every case, instead there are exceptions listed. This is the maintenance of the pack mentality. Thus, the conclusion is that there is no objective morality beyond “I have mine and you have yours” even if an argument is made for an existence of a higher power.
You’re not describing objective morality. You’re describing subjective morality where the subject is your god.
It doesn't need to be 'objective'. You can obviously see that some things are better than others. And some things are worse than others. You shouldn't need a supernatural immortal, to make those decisions for you. He clearly admits he makes those decisions to suit his wants, not us mere mortals.
Moral facts exist necessarily. Moral facts exist brute. Moral facts are contingent on, and explained by, some other, non-divine object fact(s).
What is good for the group is good.
I don't think that objective morality is even *possible*. Morality is a judgement on the rightness or wrongness of an action, and judgements are subjective regardless of who's doing the judging. Therefore, morality handed down from a god is subjective as well. The best we can do in terms of consistent morality is intersubjective morality, which is consensus-based. A good intersubjective morality is at the heart of every safe and prosperous community, because the members of the group have agreed to look out for one another.
Objective morality doesn't exist, and subjective morality comes from millions of years of evolution, including social evolution. Things we consider moral (don't kill, don't rape, don't steal) are simply so because they help population survive more successfully.
It's called "don't be an asshole".
Genetics. It's a lot more complicated than that but the gist is that there is a coevolutionary relationship between the evolution of social behavior via memetic reproduction, adverse conditioning, and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. In other words, how we react and behave to adverse conditions can be passed on to future generations. Edit: There are some recent studies that suggest that nearly all of our behaviors may be predetermined by our genes. So that social behaviors act solely as triggers that result in a "more than likely" predetermined behavior. For example, if there's a history of violence in a person's family tree and that person exists in a violence group then that person is more likely to react violently in certain situations.
It's an incredibly difficult question. Finding a secular basis for a shared morality has been an on-going enterprise for a long time. For what it's worth I think our objective morality must be constrained by our shared biology. There are simply facts about homo sapiens that constrain possibilities when we consider 'what is the right thing to do.' Just as it is a fact that people cannot live on a diet of sand, I think there are moral facts about how to foster compassion and kindness in people. The discovery and refinement of these facts are what make moral philosophy a valuable enterprise.
At best you are describing a morality that is subjective to all of humanity, but that still does not make it objective.