I'm not proposing any particular process. I'm making the claim that what you're doing doesn't accurately describe "objective morality".

The fact that you keep coming back to something like this keeps me thinking that you're really unclear about what you're talking about.

In other words, there are some thing for which objective truth not impossible.

Part of the problem is that we often try to think of subjective and objective as being negations of each other (if it's not subjective, then it's objective, and vice versa), but we also have definitions for subjective and objective that aren't negations of each other. Specifically, sometimes we think of objective as meaning "measurable" instead of simply "not subjective."

A useful analogy for this is to think about a meter. We have an objective standard for what a meter is (the distance that light travels in a vacuum in a certain time interval). In this sense of objective, we really mean measurable. How can this be understood as subjective? The definition of a meter is subject to the conventions established by the international system of measures (look up meter on wikipedia if you care). That seems to make this a subjective measure because it refers back to the opinions (or declarations) a certain collection of people. A meter is not really defined in some fundamental sense, like the speed of light being fundamentally defined by nature.

This is the sort of game that is being played with objective/subjective morality with respect to God. When the theists talk about objective morality from God, they're talking about it in a manner that is similar to the speed of light. It's somehow a fundamental fact about the universe. But the word game is to make God into a person so that they try to make it subjective (in the same way that a meter is subjective).

What would accurately describe objective morality? if not the majority agreement of individuals cross-culturally? followed by a pinpointing of chemical processes responsible for said agreement?
Depends on what you're measuring because different things require different standards of evidence. A metaphysics professor could easily demand a standard of evidence so high that even something considered fundamentally true such as: 1+1 = 2 would not meet the requirements (for instance, many thought experiments show that there is even a chance that everything we think we know is false - e.g.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat.) This is one of countless such thought experiments which has a possibility of being true, and all you need is a minor possibility to make any statement of objectivity 99.9999% true.

Hence, scientists make sure to avoid ever making a claim on anything being 100% objectively true. It's only true to the point that your standard of evidence demands.

As for morality, you're trying to apply a standard of evidence to the measurement of morality that is completely inapplicable.

I think objective morality is a nonsensical concept. It's like saying oranges are objectively tasty.

I don't know why any scientist would attempt to prove such nonsense.

I also never understood the jump from God's morals to objective morals, so I don't think theists can somehow more reasonably use that term.

You clearly do not understand what objective morality means, its embarrassing.

I hope you understand that to claim something to be objectively true, it must first be measured.

So then tell me, how do you measure the objectivity of morality? Something other than a survey of mass agreement (social science): followed by investigation of chemical processes in the brain that are responsible for said agreement (hard-science)?

Do we put morality on the table and prod it with instruments?

Tell me. Is there some method I'm unaware of? Because it seems to me that mass agreement of 99% of individuals, when it comes to - not killing their children - is a rather appropriate indication/measurement of objectivity? - when it comes to the question of morality.

Perhaps you're saying that - whether we kill our children or not, is not a matter of morality, but I doubt you'd be this silly - considering infanticide is far more common in species that have less oxytocin (molecule of empathy/morality) in their blood and brain.

+1

You still don't seem to grasp the mere definition of "objectivity." By the standard you're using, the sun objectively went around the earth at one point in human history.

You're trying to assert something that's false. And instead of confronting the falseness of you're pushing the conversation somewhere else. Whatever objective morality would be if it existed, what you're describing cannot possibly be it.

All of this has nothing to do with the topic at hand. You have grabbed a particular ("objectively wrong") understanding of the topic, and now you're just rambling in order to defend some other point that has nothing to do with the actual topic.

I'm trying to be as clear as possible.

Can you please define subjective morality and objective morality for me, and tell me how you would measure each.

John Searle describes these two meanings of objectivity as "ontological objectivity" and "epistemological objectivity." Something is ontologically objective if it is mind-independent. Something is epistemologically objective if its truth doesn't depend on the whims of the individual thinker. So, for example, the existence of the sun is an ontologically objective fact. The existence of the United States is an epistemologically objective fact.

What makes the claim that the sun exists true in an ontologically objective sense is that this would be so regardless of our thoughts about the sun--its existence doesn't depend on our cognition in any way. However, the existence of the United States is not mind-independent and so is not ontologically objective. It depends on an array of social conventions created and maintained by humans (and crucially, on the mental attitudes of humans). If those conventions disappeared or were no longer maintained, then the U.S. would no longer exist.

However, the existence of the U.S. is epistemologically objective. I cannot make the U.S. not exist merely by changing my own mind about it. There is general agreement about these social conventions, and that general agreement creates a social reality in which it is a fact about the world that the U.S. exists. So even though the existence of the U.S. is not mind-independently true, it is still a fact about the world, albeit a fact that depends on our mental attitudes.

A couple of issues here. First, there is the question of whether a divine-command type theory of morality would make moral claims objective in an ontological or epistemological sense. It seems to me pretty clear that for divine command theorists, moral claims should be understood as epistemologically objective claims. But maybe you disagree.

However, if you agree with me that divine-command morality makes morality epistemologically objective, but not ontologically objective, then I don't think you should object if Veeddzz` also claims to be defending a form of (epistemologically) objective morality, albeit one set by the collective intentions of humans rather than the intentions of god.

This is the relevance of Veeddzz`'s appeal to the facts about human psychology (e.g. mirror neurons and oxytocin) and the general agreement among humans to abide by certain social conventions around behavior. If these claims are true, then we would say that it is a (epistemologically) objective fact about humans that certain behaviors are morally wrong. This is because if they are true, then the immorality of torturing infants would not depend on my whims, but rather on the social conventions of our living together in society and the psychological makeup of human beings.

I suspect that many people would still be dissatisfied with this account of morality. When they talk about objective morality, what they really want is a morality that is absolute. That is, they reject the view that the objectivity of morality is based on human conventions or attitudes because they think this isn't robust enough to ground their actual moral views--where it is always wrong to torture infants, regardless of our social conventions or mental attitudes towards such torture.

But here we can ask the same question for divine-command theories of ethics. If morality is based on the will of god, wouldn't the exact same counterfactuals be relevant? If god had different mental attitudes towards moral claims--if she didn't think that torturing infants was morally evil, then it wouldn't be morally evil. Thus, we still wouldn't have justified an absolutist conception of morality.

I'm not so sure about that, my friend.

Subjective morality (def) what is valued is good. E.g., compassion is good because compassion is valued; life is good because life is valued; truth is good because truth is valued; etc…

Objective morality (def) what is good is valued. E.g., compassion is valued because compassion is good; life is valued because life is good; truth is valued because truth is good; etc…

As I say, I concede it may be a word game to make God into a person and on that basis say that God's morality is subjective. But it's uninformative to say that God's morality is objective if all 'objective' means in this case is 'somehow a fundamental fact about God's nature'. Thoughtful post though.

I guess I'm not seeing how it's a word game to say God's morality could be subjective when the classically defined orthodox god is defined as an entity separate from the universe with a will and mind of his/her/it's own.

I think Aaron's conception of God is that he is not a person, so to that extent, God's morality can't be subjective on the basis that it is a set of views affirmed by a person. Maybe it's not quite correct to call this a word game, but I'm just reflecting his words here.

But my point was that as I approximate Aaron's conception of God, it also seems dubious to say that God's morality is objective. Suppose the conception is that God's morality follows necessarily from his nature, and that God's nature is necessary. What additional meaning is supplied by the description that his morality is objective? It's either a near synonym for 'necessary' in which case it's redundant, or it conveys something else that is beyond how the word is usually used (which is to negate subjective as Aaron pointed out).

In general, I don't think that subjective or objective are the best words to use in this context, it's marginally better to use other words (eg necessary/absolute perhaps), but it's best to just spell out as many suppositions about God's morality as possible, analyze their consequences, and leave the labels for later.

I'll try some modal sophistry - God couldn't have had different mental attitudes towards moral claims; God's attitudes towards moral claims follow necessarily from God's nature and God's nature is necessary, so there are no relevant counterfactuals.

I'm glad that there's a more precise language for my thoughts on the matter of "objectivity."

Given that what you're describing sounds like moral relativism, I see no value in trying to use the term "(epistemologically) objective morality" to describe it. Furthermore, you're right that most people would be dissatisfied with this account for precisely the infant torture reason. I think most people would reject that torturing babies would become moral simply by everyone agreeing with the claim that it is moral.

I see that my post could have been taken as contradicting/challenging your description of my view. I really meant for it to be a further elaboration, not disagreement.

I agree to large extent. My personal belief about morality is that it's objective insofar as God has a clear moral opinion on moral matters (which does not mean that he has a moral opinion on all matters). But getting to the point of affirming/confirming moral truths is a very difficult argument that I don't think I can successfully make. There's some level of moral intuition that is necessary to get started, and there's a combined element of revealed religion and culturally embedded understanding for which I do not believe I have a sufficient accounting.

Thanks.

Thank you very much. This sums up my thoughts better than I could. I always struggle explaining to people what 'objectivity' means from an epistemological perspective, because they only seem to think in black and white: absolutes - relativism.

This is how objectivity (statistical significance within a population) is viewed in social science. Unless you have a better method of identifying objective moral truths (absent of deities/absolutes), I fail to see how my contribution in this thread is "objectively wrong".

Science is not as concerned with 'absolute truth' as it is with 'method' and functionality. It does not assume the existence of an absolute truth, but simply seeks to the best of its abilities. Consequently, this is why it succeeds over philosophy and religion, in terms of explanatory power. It identifies the best possible methods for deriving truths (no matter how relative your black and white thinking may view them to be) about diversely different domains.

The main problem that I have is that, to take Original Position's post in context, objective morality would be mind independent and that seems impossible when God is defined as an orthodoxically defined God, independent of the universe with a will and mind of it's own. In this sense, while God is not a person, **** sapien, the concept of God does contain parts, at least to the duelist, that make up a man, namely will and mind. Aaron tries to get around this by hazily defining objective morality as kind of built into the universe but by the theist's own admission the universe is constructed by a mind and a will, which pushes the question of subjective/objective morality to the othadoxically defined God by saying for which purpose was this 'objective morality' built into the universe by a will and/or mind and is this purpose objective or subjective?

I mean I don't know, but that's how it seems to me. There is an incongruence to say that god, an immaterial being with a will and mind who interacts with the natural world has objective morality while **** sapiens are, according to the duelist, composed of immaterial beings with a will and mind informed by the natural world by a body has subjective morality.

I wonder if atheists find it self contradictory to split hairs over subjective/objective morality when they spend so much time cherrypicking history to find certain groups in the wrong.

Try digging into all groups some time.

The more I dig into history the more I discover all people contain some evil thinking just like God says in Genesis 6.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...+6&version=CEV

Social science is descriptive, not normative. But morality is normative. I fail to see the value in presenting it in this manner.

It's objectively wrong because it fails to actually address the issue. You keep trying to talk about things that don't matter, and it leaves a very clear impression that you're not talking about the same thing as everyone else.

This is an example of precisely what I mean.

FWIW - I looked around a little while to try to find evidence of anyone else treating morality as a social science, but with no luck. There are articles about using social science to understand how people apply their moral viewpoints in various types of situations, but nowhere does anyone say anything along the lines of using social science methods to determine anything like an objective morality.

I think your viewpoint is an outlier by a significant amount and you won't be able to find anyone else defining objective morality in this way.

The first thing to point out about your defense here is that it contradicts an important Christian doctrine--the idea that God is free. Christians believe that God is perfect, but they also think that God is perfect by choice--he is not determined to act as he does by his nature. So I don't think they can say (consistently with their own doctrines) that God necessarily has the thoughts or feelings that he does. Thus, it is strictly speaking possible for god to act differently than he does.

Second, I don't think it ends up mattering much whether we think the objective moral measure comes from god's will or from god's nature. Whether morality is set by god's will or god's nature, the counterfactuals will be the same. We would say that if god willed other than he does, then what he wills would still be morally perfect because "morally perfect" just means "what god wills." But, in an exactly parallel fashion, if the part of god's nature that sets his preferences for human actions were different than it is, it would still be morally perfect (and so consistent with the claim that god must be a perfect being) because then "morally perfect" would just mean "the relevant bits of god's nature."