Is Morality Objective?

[EvieTheAvocado]

This trivial observation by no means support the claim that 'all values are driven by basic instincts, namely seeking pleasure and avoiding pain'. 

If you're expecting a deductive argument for why all extrinsic goals ultimately come down to intrinsic values ... then you're not getting one (after all, that seems to just be true by definition because all goals are is extrinsic values and extrinsic values are tautologically based on intrinsic values). It seems intuitively sound, to me, to say that happiness and unhappiness/pleasure and suffering are intrinsic values. That would be one of the axioms of the morality I accept.

It demonstrates low-level mechanisms can be overridden by high-level processes e.g. thinking. 

I don't see how it demonstrates that at all.

As I said spinal reflexes (e.g. the reflex when touching a hot object) can be overridden by cerebral cortex for example.

That doesn't imply that the cerebral cortex isn't ultimately driven by a need to seek pleasure and avoid suffering for the self and other selves that are important to the self (as we're social creatures ... our 'me' is often expanded into an 'us').

'Bob values modesty'

Bob values modesty extrinsically—he has a goal to be modest—because of something else that he values intrinsically ...

I don't see how anything besides positive and negative happiness can be valued intrinsically. Modesty isn't something that is good for its own sake.

I dismiss your argument. My first hand observation of my own values is the ultimate judge concerning my values, I do not recognize any other authorities to judge my values. This follows trivially from my view that values are subjective. Your attempt to demonstrate that I, in fact value pleasure, cannot possibly be fruitful, as I do not recognize any other authorities to make judgements about my values.

You don't have to realize that you're driven by such intrinsic values as they're intrinsic precisely because they run so deep that they're implicitly valued whether you realize it or not. If the reason why you value anything other than happiness and unhappiness or have any sort of instrumental goal is ultimately driven by your desire for increasing the happiness/decreasing the unhappiness of those who you care about, yourself included, then that's what you implicitly intrisically value whether you realize it or not ... as it's the basis for everything else that you value even if you mistakingly think that other things can intrinsically matter to you when they cannot.

I clearly specified the two senses in a previous post.

But I clearly specified why intrinsic values are the exception to such a supposed equivocation of two different senses ... because an intrinsic value is both an ultimate goal and also what all extrinsic goals are based off of. In the case of such an intrinsic value there is no equivocation.

Basic drives obviously drive our behaviors to some extents. But there is evidence that they can be overridden by high-level faculties that the human mind possesses. e.g. you can override your reflexes.

Our ability to override our reflexes or make decisions doesn't demonstrate that all our behavior isn't ultimately driven by a desire to increase happiness/decrease unhappiness for those who we care about (ourselves included). 

As I said your point that avoiding pain and seeking pleasure can drive behaviors is trivially true. But your claim that 'all values' are driven by these two is unsubstantiated.

It's an intuitively sound axiom that makes a lot of sense to me. The notion that anything else can be inrinsically valued besides happiness/unhappiess or pain and pleasure seems intuitively unsound to the point of absurdity, to me. There is not one example of anything having intrinsic value besides happiness and unhappiness or pleasure and pain ... but those things are clearly intrinsic values.

Sure, it may, somehow, be possible to one day describe something else that has intrinsic value besides happiness and unhappiness or pleasure and pain ... but I don't really see how it's possible when all intrinsic value must come down to a matter of experience because value and meaning is impossible without experience ... and good/bad qualitiy experience is precisely what happiness/unhappiness or pleasure and pain is all about. It seems that there is no way that any other intrinsic value, besides the direct positive or negative quality of an experience (happiness/unhappiness), can ever even be meaningfully described. 

Further, I think such a strong claim is not necessary for objective morality. The mere fact that basic drives exist can be a sufficient ground for objective morality, why do we have to bring up the complicated and extremely vague notion of 'values'?

All values are ultimately experiential and ultimately all intrinsic values come down to an experience being inrinsically positive or negative to us, from our perspective, things only matter because they matter to us ...

... I don't see anything vague about intrinsic values. I think goals are far vaguer as putting too much stock in them are clear examples of the map being mistaken for the territory.

I also think that valuing goals (which are just extrinsic values) over values (specifically intrinsic ones) is not only putting the cart before the horse but it's an example of falling into the trap of the Fallacy of the Cave:

"The Idols of the Cave are the idols of the individual man. For everyone (besides the errors common to human nature in general) has a cave or den of his own, which refracts and discolors the light of nature, owing either to his own proper and peculiar nature; or to his education and conversation with others; or to the reading of books, and the authority of those whom he esteems and admires; or to the differences of impressions, accordingly as they take place in a mind preoccupied and predisposed or in a mind indifferent and settled; or the like. So that the spirit of man (according as it is meted out to different individuals) is in fact a thing variable and full of perturbation, and governed as it were by chance. Whence it was well observed by Heraclitus that men look for sciences in their own lesser worlds, and not in the greater or common world."

— Novum Organum, Aphorism XLII

The deepest of values is something that we, and all conscious beings capable of happiness and unhappiness—whether human or not—all share in common. Goals (extrinsic values) really are like false idols because they are extrinsic to happiness and unhappiness. You could attempt to argue otherwise ... but I don't see how your position is as sound as mine ... or how it even could be: Literally anything else that could ever be described to be valued intrinsically only seems to be that way because it would be experienced/valued for its own good in and of itself ... which is precisely what happiness/pleasure is: an intrinsically good experience. It doesn't seem possible to have any other sort of intrinsic value besides the positive value of happiness or negative value of unhappiness (which can also be conceptualized as just one intrinsic value across a spectrum ... maximum happiness being at the one end and maximum unhappiness being at the other end).

In short, when it comes to meaning in life for, and right and wrong treatment of, the self and others: goals are extrinsic and of the shadow ... but value is intrinsic and of the essence.