I know it was long, but if you think that epistemological objective morality is the same thing as moral relativism then you pretty clearly didn't read my post with any kind of care. Notice that I was claiming that divine command ethics is an example of an epistemological objective morality. Kantian deontology would be another example. Yet both of these are (correctly in my view) regarded as fairly extreme absolutist moral systems, about as far as you can get from moral relativism.

Now it is true that an epistemologically objective morality could also ground a form of moral relativism (which is why I raised the issue), but my point was that merely positing the existence of a god doesn't on its own solve this problem. If our worry is a counterfactual one--what if humans were different than they are and so had different moral preferences--then we have a parallel worry about god. Thus, if you think that god can save absolutist morality, then you should be willing to acknowledge that some accounts of human nature can also save absolutist morality.

I also want to clarify a common misconception about the type of view I am describing here. Just because morality is based on these more subjective or epistemological categories doesn't mean that morality is set by what we think is moral (i.e. "torturing babies would become moral simply by everyone agreeing with the claim that it is moral"). Marital rape used to be legal and generally accepted as moral in the U.S. Does that mean it was actually moral on this view? Not necessarily. We can't just decide that something doesn't hurt another person or ourselves, and we can't just decide that a certain kind of social structure is the right one to achieve human goals. It is not even clear that we can just decide on what our goals are.

This is why the scientific literature about the moral attitudes of humans across cultures, the outcomes of different political, economic, and social structures, and the neurological basis of human desires and goals is relevant to figuring out whether an action is moral or not. Some of our moral rules do seem pretty clearly morally relative (just because they are based on background institutions of marriage or property that are not universal). But other moral rules, such as rules around murder, or the golden rule, might be universal across human cultures (and thus not relative) because of some basic part of what it is to be human.

If that's the definition of objective morality than any coherent theory of morality must be subjective.

This. What theists want is not objective morality - where a human life always has intrinsic value and its wrong to kill it even for god (no matter how incoherent that is anyway) - they want a tyrannical absolutist morality where whatever a god says is right. Which as OP pointed out is still incoherent.

When theologians say that God is free they mean that He is free from anything outside Himself which is something true of nothing but God. They don't mean He is free in an arbitrary way. The Bible says God can't lie and that He can't sin. So He is bound by His own nature though it's questionable whether our language is adequate to express what that actually means.

If God is a necessary being then He could not have been different in nature. If He could have been different then He isn't absolute because His nature would not be absolute. So your argument boils down to "There are no absolutes". Apply your argument to a realist moral position that says there is an absolute, impersonal moral code. Same result. It could have been different, therefore it isn't absolute, therefore there are no absolutes. As finite, flawed, sinful humans we can assert there are no absolutes without fear of being proved wrong. But then we have to understand the consequences.

You're being willingly stubborn.

In social science, statistical significance within a population (on any kind of issue - whether political, economic, social etc.) is indicative of an objective view on such matters. There are many moral issues for which this is the case, blatantly demonstrating a thread of objectivity within morality.

Furthermore, my viewpoint is not an outlier at all. It is the opposite in fact. There is countless research from various social science fields such as - business ethics, law, sociology etc. - as well as various hard science fields such as neuroscience and molecular biology - on many moral issues. Many of them demonstrate various threads of objectivity within the monolithic construct of morality.

This is not to say that morality is entirely objective either, but simply that there are many answers to moral issues which are agreed upon objectively.

It's entirely possible (nay -- it's probable) that I didn't quite follow what you're putting forth. It's also entirely possible (nay -- it's absolutely true) that I fired off that post in haste. So let me elaborate on my viewpoint to see if it brings more clarity.

What I read in the following it what specifically sounds like moral relativism:

As far as I can see, the bolded is precisely what moral relativism says. That is, morality is dependent upon the culture. Since culture is dependent upon collective understandings, it's certainly not subject to the whims of the individual. This is epistemologically objective. That fits the definition, but the since we now have moral relativism included in a category that is described as "objective" I'm already skeptical of the value of this category.

Furthermore, let's now ask the question of what moral system can fail to be epistemologically objective? That is, what moral system is subject to the whims of the individual? That would be some sort of individualist morality (which I guess is an extreme version of moral relativism).

[Here, I point out that I don't think that a divine command theory, at least under the Christian understanding of God, would qualify in the sense that God is not subject to "whim." That is, God is theologically constant and consistent and does not violate his nature. I'll say more about this below.]

For this reason, I'm not quite sure that trying to describe morality in terms of "epistemologically objective" is actually helpful or meaningful.

Does this at least clarify my objection?

The counter-factual God seems to me as a basic rejection of Christian orthodoxy. God is good. But what if he's evil? Then he's not good, and you're talking about a different god. In the same way, God is immutable (constant, not subject to whim). His actions flow from his character, which is essential to his being. So you can have your parallel worry, but it seems to me to be nothing more than a rejection of a description of God.

Furthermore, we have examples of cultures that are different from ours and where they accept things that we strongly disagree with. We have examples cultures that accept things like "honor killings" even though we would view such an action as being wrong. And it seems to me that for anything action that is viewed as morally wrong, there's some culture which finds it at least morally neutral, if not morally good. So I'm not sure that constructing your argument in this way is ultimately successful.

Again, this would allow you to claim that the sun objectively travels around the earth, and not the other way around. Original Position has defined for you the term "epistemologically objective" and I think you should really use the full phrase in your positions, because it will help you to clearly indicate what you're saying. As I noted, an inch is simultaneously objective and not objective (that is, it's epistemologically objective, but not ontologically objective).

When you say that "statistical significance within a population is indicative of an objective view on such matters," I doubt that most social scientists view your usage of "objective" as being consistent with what they mean it to be. There are objective descriptive claims, but that's not the same as having objective normative claims. And again, when we're talking about morals. If you want to talk about descriptive ethics, you're talking about people's understanding of morality, and not morality itself.


How about you cite something, and you use that citation to convince me that you're talking about normative, and not descriptive matters.

I think NotReady's last response is very close to what I had in mind. Whether it's consistent with Christian doctrine generally speaking I have no idea, my sense is that Christian doctrine is quite elastic.

The question isn't what if God was evil, but what if he were different. The idea that he's different means he isn't the same as he is now is like like duh obviously territory. That's the whole point of a counterfactual.

I chose "God is evil" as a particular choice of what it might mean for God to be different. If God were different, you would be talking about something else.

The distinction is that the counterfactual position of "what if people felt differently" is actual made manifest in reality by specific persons and cultures.

I am "god." I am good. Omnipresent. Omniscient. All of that.

There are possible universes wherein goodness exists alongside evil. Maelstroms, as it were. But goodness can be found there.

Does goodness allow for rebellion? Can I, as God, animate this universe without violating my nature? Must I abandon my children because they are far from home? How far do they need to be before I turn my face from them?

Maybe God is free, as you say, but still determined to act as he does "by nature."

He IS God, afterall.

Even if you're ultimately right, it's safe to assume it's a little more nuanced than like duh. To start with, a proposition is necessarily true if it's not possible that it's not true. If God's nature is necessary, then it's not possible that he does not have that nature. If you sneak in a counterfactual about his nature, it seems that you're saying that it's possible that God doesn't have a necessary nature, and then it follows that God doesn't have a necessary nature.

Well, I guess that depends on your opinion. I'm taking it that you mean that " what if God were evil" means the same thing as " what if God were different"

Glad to know you think God isn't an actual being that manifests in reality.

In the sense that a counterfactual, valid or not, means that God' is different that God, than yes that is a LDO.

I'm reasonably sure that's not how it works. If you postulate that something is necessarily what it is, you can't alter any of its necessary properties and continue to say that it's the same thing.

Objective Morality is the idea that something is wrong or right regardless of what people think or feel.

Raping a 4 month old baby would be something you guys consider objectively immoral.

The Nazis killing the Jews would be another.

But what about things in the grey area what about abortion? or the death penalty? or collateral damage in war?

Let me give you an example in the UK the speed limit is 30mph in built up areas if you hit someone at this speed the chance of that person dieing is less than 10% or something like I can't remember but if you drive at 16mph there is only 1% chance of death so what is more moral?

Lets forget the word moral for a second for me that word is nonsensical rather lets describe what's happening in the real world,

1. Preference: I prefer not to murder and I prefer to be social with others who don't murder.

2. Risk and Reward or what do you value.

3. Power: Whoever is in charge gets to make the rules and set the standard of what they consider right and wrong.

You can't measure right or wrong like gravity because people value different things. You can't get a value from a fact its the is - ought problem.

Its like saying theres a same sexually position for everyone that's right.

Its like saying theres the same type of food for everyone that's right.

I was watching this tv documentary about jail and they did this interview with repeat offender and to him it was worth the risk for stealing and doing drugs or whatever he was doing.

Right or wrong? to who? like in poker it depends....and it depends on the 3 things I mentioned above.

How do you get a sense of what I ought to do morally speaking in an universe that was created through happenstance?

Doesn't even make sense.

How else do explain slavery ummm....it was moral back then but not now...

Its like saying theres one type of music thats right for everyone.

I think another problem is that you believe your standard and what you value is better and thus everyone ought to follow that.moral code. But "better" or "good" for who?

Morality? .....nope not buying it ........subjective preferences sure.

Moral nihilism , also known as ethical
nihilism , is the meta-ethical view that
morality does not exist as something
inherent to objective reality; therefore no
action is necessarily preferable to any
other. For example, a moral nihilist
would say that killing someone, for
whatever reason, is not inherently right
or wrong. Other nihilists may argue not
that there is no morality at all, but that if
it does exist, it is a human and thus
artificial construction, wherein any and
all meaning is relative for different
possible outcomes. As an example, if
someone kills someone else, such a
nihilist might argue that killing is not
inherently a bad thing, bad
independently from our moral beliefs,
only that because of the way morality is
constructed as some rudimentary
dichotomy, what is said to be a bad thing
is given a higher negative weighting than
what is called good: as a result, killing
the individual was bad because it did not
let the individual live, which was
arbitrarily given a positive weighting. In
this way a moral nihilist believes that all
moral claims are false.

From wiki

The above must make every nihilist a hypocrite. If no action is preferable to any other, then why do nihilists continue to eat? Eating involves effort. Why put in that effort, if not eating is equally preferable?

What you may argue against this is that - the philosophy of nihilism strictly refers to the value of moral actions, and not all actions. If this is the case however, then isn't the very foundation of the philosophy contradictory? You can't automatically discount the importance of subjective values, just because they are not inherent to objective reality. It's like trying to discount the physics of quantum mechanics just because it has no discernible basis in the physics of larger objects.

We should not be drawing any "therefore's" such as the one bolded above, until we have enough evidence to fully understand the mind-reality connection.

How about no action is OBJECTIVELY preferable.

Changes nothing. Given the common definition of 'objectivity' I would assume that this is common sense. My issue isn't with this. It's with the presumptious implications that they draw from this, with their - "therefore's".

I think this is appropriate for all the God-guided objective morality enthusiasts:

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." - Einstein.

Unfortunately, you fail to properly understand the "therefore" of God-guided morality.

I thought VeeDDzz was just saying that it's better to be good for goodness sake, rather than being good in order to get into heaven or avoid hell. Is this even a controversial statement, or am I missing something?

That is what he's saying. But that also improperly characterizes God-guided morality. In the most general sense, God-guided morality is simply that God defines morality (which has nothing to do with heaven or hell).

If he wants to apply it to Christianity in particular, it's still wrong. You do not do good actions to avoid going to hell. Doing good actions alone is simply not enough to avoid hell.

I'm confused now if people are good for goodness sake then why is there rules and laws.

Is it not more true that most people are only good because they fear punishment i.e jail etc..