Deities and Objective Truths

Joe Salem

Greetings everyone! I am thrilled about my first post here.

Context: A friend and I were having a discussion about an article he had read from his professor involving abortion laws. It had been an interesting chat that transitioned into a discussion about murder. My friend (call him Jon) and I have philosophically different views about this topic, as it raises the question: "What is objectively right or wrong?" Jon hails from a Christian background and I have no specific affiliation. The main focus of the argument stems from Jon citing God as an "arbiter" of objectiveness in everything, and thus God's teachings are objective. I came up with a scenario where I have a god as well; however, as opposed to Jon's god being omni-benevolent and stating that murder is wrong, my god (call it Gob) states that it is also omni-benevolent and that murder is is not wrong. Further arguments only kept begging the question, and thus a conclusion akin to "I am right and you're wrong just because. . ." was reached (out of fatigue, not rage.) For reference, the idea of right/wrong has been set up as "Something which is not justified." Thus, something like murder takes on its legal sense. This however, is refuted similarly to the argument about right/wrong; as in: "Why does something need to be justified?" Another reference:

Premises Used:
1) The beliefs of a being which transcends the Universe hold objective truth.
2) God and Gob are beings which transcend the Universe.
3) God states that killing is wrong, Gob states that it is not. Simply put: one thing is apparently moral and the other is apparently not.
4) The decision for right/wrong does not transcend the beings, for they created these concepts and bound themselves to them. In other words, right/wrong does not transcend the gods.
5) It is plausible that either god exists. The arguers however, can not be certain of this.

Topic Question: Can one prove something moral to be universally objective?
Example to answer: Is killing/destroying something universally wrong? (if so, what proves it to be "wrong" then?)

Hopefully this doesn't sound too regressive or meaninglessly nihilistic. Thank you!

View Answer

Jake

Without some proven ultimate authority to reference, I'm not sure we can call anything objectively universally right or wrong.

However, we can define right or wrong in relation to some stated goal. As example, if the goal is to have constructive conversations on this forum, it's wrong to scream in each other's faces.

If we first define a context, we can then define right and wrong within that context in a manner that could be called objective. As example, a study of 10,000 forums might reveal that screaming always leads to a pattern of unconstructive conversations. If screaming is proven to undermine the stated goal, then it is an objective truth within the context of that goal.

BC

If we don't like universal relativism ("whatever any culture or any person believes to be right is right") then we have to find a way to locate a moral foundation for universally objective standards of right and wrong. This isn't a new problem, of course. It's rather ancient.

It seems to be the case that we have located foundational moral standards in religion -- and that location was carried out two to three thousand years ago. These foundational moral standards have held fairly well. That certainly doesn't mean that they have always been rigorously followed, of course.

Where did the religious foundations come from? God? Gods? No - they came from the inventors of the gods -- human beings. The invention of religion and the establishment of at least some minimum standards of good and bad behavior, was a major cultural achievement. Once civil institutions arose further elaboration and implementation of rules and regulations occurred. Hammurabi, would be an early example.

Once supranational entities were organized (the Roman Empire or the International Court of Justice are examples) some universal standards of behavior were extended across cultures. Of course, none of these efforts at establishing objective right and wrong standards at the local, regional, national, or supranational have been totally successful--we being the less-than-totally-evolved primates that we are.

SophistiCat

God states that killing is wrong, Gob states that it is not. — Joe Salem

I think that this controversy should be resolved in the traditional way: single combat.

Joe Salem

↪SophistiCat

I find this quite interesting! I believe an earlier answer mentioned a need of a proven ultimate authority. If both God and Gob existed, then combat might be a way to prove who the ultimate being is!

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Rank Amateur

↪tim wood

So a man walks into a bar and says, I bet you an elephant will appear at the door of this establishment it exactly 35 seconds. Do not bet this man !!!

That is feeling of impending doom I have taking up your challenge.

I will say that murder ( the unjustified taking of human life) is objectively wrong because:

it deprives a person of all the relationships, experiences, activities, enjoyments, projects that would make up their future life. Murder is a bad thing because it causes the loss of future experiences of value.

Joe Salem

↪Rank Amateur

Aha! This is very similar to the response my friend gave me. However, he tuned it more along the lines of Aristotle in saying that it "takes away the good life." My question to you then is this: why is depriving a person of these things inherently wrong- even if I have my own deity that says otherwise? (Granted you are citing a transcendent deity are your grounds to begin with.)

Rank Amateur

(Granted you are citing a transcendent deity are your grounds to begin with.) — Joe Salem

don't think my argument back has any supernatural grounds.

in some type of syllogism -

P1 - I am in complete possession of my unique future.
P2 - My unique future is composed of things. Experiences,
relationships, etc that I value.
P3 - without justifiable cause or permission, it is wrong to take things that others posses

proposition - it is wrong for someone to unjustly take the future of value that I posses

Joe Salem

↪Rank Amateur

Apologies, I was just sticking with one of the premises that my friend set out.
1) The beliefs of a being which transcends the Universe hold objective truth.
I see that your argument in response to tim wood here does not involve this. Statements retracted!

Wayfarer

I voted 'indeterminable'. The criterion for religious truths is not objective but transcendent. This is because religious commandments and laws - consider the ten commandments for example - are purported to be true at all times and places and for all people, so, transcending time and place. But they're not objective in that they concern purported truth claims which are out of scope for objective analysis; they're 'beyond objective', if you like.

The reason that's a challenge is because in our modern technocratic culture 'objectivity' is the default criterion for what is considered to be true; when we seek to validate an idea, we ask 'is it objectively the case'? And in the context of pluralistic and secular culture, religious ideologies have usually been either subjectivized or relativised i.e. held to be either a matter of personal opinion ('true for you'), or deemed to be true by a particular social or cultural group.

Demanding objective validation for a truth claim basically brings you into the territory of positivism, which is 'a philosophical system recognizing only that which can be scientifically verified or which is capable of logical or mathematical proof'.

I suggest to you that the reason you can glibly invoke an imaginary deity and assign it arbitrary powers, is because the question really doesn't matter to you. As far as you're concerned, it's simply a thought-experiment or a word-game. But if you felt that something really was in the balance - that an unethical decision had severe moral consequences - then you might approach it differently; you would have, so to speak, 'skin in the game'. I'm not saying you should have skin in the game, but it's worth reflecting on the fact that for those with religious beliefs, this is what it amounts to; it matters in some way which can't easily be communicated to those without them.

BrianW

Even if there are morally objective truths, how can we, limited by perspective, recognize them as such? I think, for us, relativity is infinite. Therefore, everything has to depend on perspective. It is inevitable that there will always be a scale beyond which our objectivity becomes subjective.

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