THBT: Morality is not objective
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After 2 votes and with 7 points ahead, the winner is...
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Definitions:
Morality = a set of rules, explicit or implicit, governing the intrinsic good or bad nature of an action
Objective morality = morality exists as a universal property outside of an individual perceiver
BoP:
Ossa_997: Morality is likely not objective
Contender: Morality is likely objective
RULES:
1. No Kritik.
2. No new arguments are to be made in the final round.
3. Agreeing to this debate entails agreement to the rules.
4. Be decent.
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‘All philosophers suffer from the same defect, in that they start with the present-day manand think they can arrive at their goal from analyzing him’- Fredrich Nietzsche (Human, All too Human)
See definition.
I. Objective Morality Is Our Default Assumption
P1: What is objective is immutable
Young children are proficient at learning through imitation from a very early age. PRO posits that morality is an idea ingrained by society in susceptible children through an osmotic process. A world where totally different ideas of morality exist is easily conceivable under our current state of the universe, and therefore possible.
P1: What is objective must describe a descriptive (pertaining to statements of reality) statement about the universe
Statements that are unanimously agreed to be objective describe a set of existence propositions.
Follows. The burden is now on CON to establish that morality is in fact describing something that IS.
Morality as it exists seems to be a conception of human thought. In order for CON to satisfy their burden in this debate, they must demonstrate a way that human morality has formed following some objective standard, i.e an external, human-indepent source of morality.In fact, this objective source does not need to even be proved, but merely demonstrated to be more viable than alternative options. Such a source does not seem possible, but I'll leave that to CON to contest.
if we presuppose that things will be, at least to an extent, as they have been
It is true that if a statement is objective, it will be treated like it is objective. CON affirms the consequent, however, when they attempt to claim that if a statement is treated objectively then the statement itself is objective.
CON has failed to establish that this divide does not exist.
Ossa won through rawdog.
1. Is/Ought Divide
CON attempts to argue that the is/ought divide does not matter due to the fact that certain philosophers deny the difference. CON follows by claiming that objective morality can be built off axioms. Applying the same logic, one realises that the difference between is/ought facts can be established by taking a very simple axiom: that what we see of the world is in fact reality. Furthermore, CON has not really offered sources to back his claim regarding a lack of is facts. The facts that philosophers do not agree says nothing about the nonexistence of descriptive facts. Furthermore, such an argument might hold if one takes the stance that there is an external world inaccessible by our senses. As humans are limited to senses however, it seems that descriptions of sensory experience are enough to fulfill the criterion of being a descriptive fact.
CON has failed to establish that this divide does not exist.
2. Feelings of the majority
Even if all of society unanimously felt something to be the case, that does not elevate the feeling into objectivity, rather some sort of intersubjectivity.
CON argues that our society current feels an objective morality while simultaneously positing that past cultures were simply wrong in their unanimous feelings. The fact that a culture can unanimously wrong, which both sides of the debate agree on, means that CONs assertion that our current morality veers into objectivity is unverifiable, thus an incoherent argument. Even if there existed some sort of objective morality, CONs attempt to reach this objective morality by arguing through an unverifiable fallacy of the majority means that the burden of proof CON has is not fulfilled.
3. Unanimous feelings still contradict
There is a difference between moral frameworks and moral axioms. Morality refers to the implementation of moral frameworks in society. On closer examination, unanimously held moral axioms still contradict, even if taking the axioms as objective, as I have brought up in earlier examples.
The contradiction between these axioms when making any moral choice means a preference, which is inherently subjective.
4. External morality
CON's did not tackle the external side of objective morality, leaving it to purely stipulating that there could be many sources, a largely unsatisfactory argument.
5. Immutability
While an objective and mutable morality could be argued for, CONs analysis does not sufficiently prove this. To hold that morality can both be objective and mutable in fact undermines the nature of morality which CON attempts to account for, as I explained in argument 2.
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No arguments to be considered.
well that's a lovely mindset to have, good luck! you'll gain something from this debate, win or lose.
My skillset has definitely always been more towards the second and third round than towards the first so hopefully things get more clear as the debate goes on
Interesting attempt to solve the problem, although i cant see ossa being dumbstruck by that argument, to say the least.
Pretty strong argument! good job.
I'm not going to debate it with you in the comment section, im going to have an actual debate on the subject (hopefully). If it comes up, you will find an answer too it.
> When people describe an intelligent god they generally mean a self aware conscious creator.
let's say you're right, then what ?
how do you get from that to the completely UNRELATED "god's commandments" ?
It doesn't matter what "personal" god i choose to tell you, as you will find some argument against it and i can simply switch to another concept of god (among the infinite). Its a never ending circle, and i doubt you can factor all of them out to the point of showing all of them certainly don't exist and would have no effect on morality if they did.
When people describe an intelligent god they generally mean a self aware conscious creator. We will go with that definition of intelligence. From looking at material reality, irrespective of human concepts of god, can you completely rule out through looking at the universe that there was no intelligent design?
what is your personally preferred definition of "intelligence" ?
I said intelligent design. Its very easy to say there was no intelligence in the creation of the big bang.
> In this discussion god simply means a creator.
so, functionally indistinguishable from "the big bang"
how does this inform your idea of "objective morality" ?
I'm unsure why people need to have a "personal" god to debunk. We can look at material reality from a stance where we don't involve feelings and personal beliefs with facts of reality. In this discussion god simply means a creator. So looking at reality, can you prove with certainty there was no intelligent design at play in our universe? I talk of no specific religion, lets just look at the facts of the universe. Can you prove its all by chance or without intent?
please share your personally preferred definition of "god"
Why? The spectrums of energy our physical senses can interact with are exceptionally slim compared to what we know is out there....... That's not even considering what we don't know, which will almost certainly be much more.
In theory, God could exist as a form of energy like me and you. After all, we know energy can create consciousness, we're evidence of it. He could simply just exist as energy in a completely different vibrational spectrum, hence why he's invisible and undetectable.
I'm copy and pasting this comment from a previous debate section. Our thinking is extremely biased by your culture and upbringing. This is why we need data, and evidence. We live in a small section of the globe, naturally we may experience statistical outliers. Only when you look at the grand scheme of things and take a wider glance from a wider view will you see the full picture. Do you have the full picture of everything necessary for gods certain disapproval?
> No one can put an estimate on God existing or not existing.
the only thing you have to know is the definition of "god" and the definition of "exist"
If we cannot even find who is worse drivers from our own thinking and observation. Why would we be able to with morality? which is going to be of far more breadth than who is a good driver or not.
Not at all. Do you know if God exists? or is he not a variable at all in objective morality? Those who think they can put an estimate on the variable of Gods existence simply fall for intellectual pride. No one can put an estimate on God existing or not existing. The whole moral realism vs. moral relativism has a lot of assumptionary baggage.
Humans come with all sorts of personal bias's such as the fact most people have the stereotype women are worse drivers, but a quick google search disproves this commonly held belief, men are more likely to be in car crashes (this is why insurance costs more for men). Humans live in our own small worlds, where we're only in contact with a tiny spectrum of just our planet alone, never mind the entire universe or what is potentially beyond. If we cannot find all the variables in intelligence, why are you so sure we have them with morality?
> Do you know all the variables when it comes to morality?
the only thing you have to know is the definition of "objective" and the definition of "subjective"
People being so sure morality is subjective is like people believing black people have lower IQ's because of genes. We just don't know, there's not even enough evidence to currently even put an estimate on how genetic the IQ gap is. That's why the experts don't put an estimate, as its simply not possible with the current information. Do you know all the variables when it comes to morality?
There's too many variables at play for you to assert that. You'll see when i have my debate why its false. I'll directly respond to that comment in my debate.
morality is exactly like language (shaped by geography, time, and culture)
which language do you believe is the "objectively correct" language ?
Would you say that what is good for a cow to eat is also good for you? Something can be a relative truth. To use an example, its true time is both relative and objective at the same time. Almost every philosophical discipline starts with two polar opposites, such as empiricism and rationalism (Kant bridged the gap). Then there's idealism and materialism (the answer once more is likely a mix of them both, dependant arising). The same happened with time, and I'll show the same is the case with objective and subjective morality. Hegel calls this the dialectic method, where we synthesize two different ideas to find the truth.
I'm not going to talk about it here though, I'm planning to debate it after-all.
> Morality doesn't have to be universal for it to be objective.
please explain
https://www.debateart.com/debates/2555-science-is-not-objective
I could barely be considered a human at this point, ossa. My brain has collapsed into a black hole from the sheer gravity of my intellect.
Morality = a set of rules, explicit or implicit, governing the intrinsic good or bad nature of an action
Objective morality = morality exists as a universal property outside of an individual perceiver
I would probably disagree with your objective morality definition. What may be objectively correct for me to eat (assuming objective morality) is going to be different from that of a rabbit and what is right for them. Morality doesn't have to be universal for it to be objective.
Just as moral relativism can act as a universal subjective and a non-universal subjective, why can't the same be applied to objective morality? There could be relative-objective moral facts too. I will soon prove that to you when i dunk on you in our debate.
ok, i look forward too it! good luck in your current debate.
Well I only have one padawan so...
JFC. Morality is purely subjective. There is no debate here. It is the proverbial waste of time.
I’ll be happy to debate you on the same subject matter after this one
If he believes he can assert morality as being less likely to be objective, he is in for a reality check if he debates me.
Which one is it? I'll argue with them about metaethics if they win their current debate.
Objection. Even if you are a master, you can only take one padawan at a time according to the most basic SW knowledge.
The beginning of my young padawans career.