Is Morality Objective?

[EvieTheAvocado]

That doesn't make a morality objective; that makes it internally coherent. 

Rather like all other systems at discovering the truth such as logic, mathematics and science, yes?

Reality is objective.

Yes.

I've already answered this question, but I'll do so again. The heuristic of insisting on replicability is the mechanism by which subjectivism in science is restricted. Of course individual scientists may be biased on this or that matter, but their experiments and observations need to be replicated by others for the theory to to garner acceptance.

And it's not whether they all agree that matters ... it's whether they're actually biased or not.

If you have a bunch of biased scientists or pseudo-scientists get together and agree on something that's far worse than a bunch of scientists that disagree on a few matters but are being a lot more unbiased/scientific about the whole thing.

So remember that agreement/disagreement is irrelevant and what all systems that try to discover the truth are really about is whether there is an objective fact of the matter about something that is independent of opinion or agreement.

Logic, mathematics, and ethics are abstract. They are internally coherent. They do not exist out of the human mind. Sonic the Hedgehog is also internally coherent. That has no relationship to its truth-value.

When we observe the world we are also speaking entirely from our experience. Scientists and people share similar sorts of experiences ... but that doesn't mean that the real world that is really out there is the same. It's the same for us as a species, when we're not suffering from hallucinations, but it is still dealing with our own perception of the world.

Evidence, after all, is about that which is evident to someone.

Nature has a nasty way of dealing with folks who disregard things like evidence. Calling that value "presupposed" seems like an attempt to denigrate it; if you have any better method of ascertaining objective reality than evidence, I'm all ears.

I don't. But evidence applies to what we value just as much as it applies to everything else that we perceive. And our experience of the world itself, is not only just how we do science, but that experience itself is also attached to our values.

Yes, people who disregard things like evidence will have what we experience as reality hit them in the face. That nasty way of dealing with things, though, is yet another example of experience.

And if someone hallucinates the feeling of intense pain that makes that feeling no less real. It's just that people come back in touch with 'the real world' when those hallucinations wear off ... but it is merely that reality is more stable than hallucination of delusion and hence matters more. Obviously it's not good to feel good when out of touch with reality if in the long run we're going to have reality hit us right in the face ... but that's only because we're going to be able to experience it hitting us in the face. Our own subjective experience is, after all, indeed, the only way we can truly know the world. It's just important to check what others experience as well ... and there are indeed ways of testing that experience to make sure that it is non-delusion and non-illusory. One way is to see if you're the only one seeing things a certain way or not. E.g. is there really a man in the room or can only you see and talk to him? Another way is to use logic ... and science uses both deductive and inductive logic. Experience itself is the bedrock of everything and it is also the very thing that comes with positive and negative value ... and valuing evidence is valuing experience, and valuing logic is valuing thinking properly about experience.

There are better and worse experiences than others, intrinsically, I don't know how you can get away from that fact. It's the very driving force behind why we care about reality in the first place. It's far easier to function when we are in touch with the real world. If 99% of people were better off living in delusion than reality then evolution and our experience would cater to that. Some list religion as one exception to reality where it is already catered for. Another example is why we have cognitive biases like confirmation bias ... ultimately the intrinsic quality of our experience (or lack thereof) seems to drive literally everything else. And everything else seems to be instrumental.

That is not an assumption. That is a reasonable belief based upon evidence.

Evidence being an example of experience ... experience being what we all value.

The very bedrock of science comes down to empiricism and the importance of experience. The whole reason we are interested in the world is because we value our experience in it. I'm struggling to find anything more objective to value than experience itself.

Because behavior in nature doesn't seem to have a moral dimension which provides a basis for those axioms.

What makes you think that nature doesn't have a moral dimension? What would be your argument for that?

Our experiences seem to show that morality is indeed a subjective human construct,

But our experience of our values and our caring about each other is already innate within us. We don't come with an innate science-desiring value built into us, or an innate logic-desiring value or mathematics-desiring value built into us ... and all three of those disciplines come about because we care about our experience and the experience of each other ... I am struggling to find anything MORE objective than the value of experience itself. And look at Decartes with his "I think therefore I am" ... there's nothing more knowable than our own experience.

rather than an objective template which determines behavior in the real world.

But our valuing our experience and the experience of others seems to determine absolutely all of our behavior in the real world ...? It seems to be the driving force behind all action ....?

I mean, why does it feel good when we have sex? To encourage us to reproduce. Why does it feel bad when we are harmed? To encourage us to survive. The whole way nature goes about motivating us seems to be through using our consciousness to punish or reward us when appropriate to help us survive/reproduce (obviously nature doesn't do this consciously but it does it merely through natural selection, but you get my point).

That doesn't address my point at all. Those aren't oughts. Those are the most successful heuristics we've found for interrogating the Universe.

But if we ought to value logic and evidence in order to know objective reality then how aren't logic and evidence oughts?

I mean, ultimately, all that is is what is, indeed. But the question is whether there are a such thing as oughts, that are part of reality, and it seems to me that there's no reason why our experience itself and logic and evidence (and other things that we value) shouldn't be an example of those oughts that are part of reality. 

Well, yeah, reality doesn't bow to opinions.

Morality, however, does.

But the way I see it is ... opinions are either correct or incorrect ... regardless of topic. 

I'm not arguing that reality bows to opinion. I'm arguing that the inability to agree on some pretty basic precepts really undercuts the idea that morals exist outside of human thought

But isn't that just an example of people coming up with different definitions of morality or having different values? I don't see how non-universality has any sort of undermining effect on objectivity. What is objectively the right thing for me to do might be slightly different from what is objectively the right thing for you to do.

-- and that once human thought intervenes, you are engaging in subjectivity, without the check that an organized process like science imposes on that human tendency.

But we're only being subjective when we're being biased or out of touch with reality in such a way that we aren't getting the facts right. If I correctly discover what is right for me to do then how is it not objectively right for me to do it?

Here, let's make it simple. Lay out your objective morality, that is right for everyone. Keep it simple, I'm not a philosophy student.

What is right for everyone is whatever is right for them ... not everyone has to value, experience or appreciate the same thing. It's wrong to hurt someone else because that's wrong for them. It's wrong to hurt yourself because that's wrong for you.

But definitely explain why your morals are objectively right.

Well once we get to things like causing harm/suffering that's where the axiom comes in. If someone doesn't agree with the premise that "causing people to suffer just for the fun of it is wrong", for instance, then that is very much like someone not agreeing with the premise that "Logical fallacies and lack of evidence are wrong". We don't have to prove that those things are incorrect ... that's where we just have to ignore someone if they won't accept a truth that has a premise that is so clearly true to any reasonable person "Suffering hurts" or "Suffering is intrinsically bad" seems to be just as axiomatic as "bachelors are unmarried" or "squares have four sides".

That'll give a grip on this discussion which is floating through the fog of abstraction.

I bloody love abstraction lol. Although for me it's more of a torch of abstraction than a fog of abstraction, lol.