Isn't every morality subjective? I don't know where people get their objective morality from.

Good point. If morality is subjective, why should you not call me ugly? I don’t know what country you live in, but I can safely assume that it’s not against the law. Why not call me ugly?

Because you never asked me whether you are ugly.

Can we justify morality without religion?

Religion does not "justify morality" – the question makes no sense – so, of course, we can. Morality, like language more generally, is an emergent property of eusocial species such as homo sapien sapiens. Thus, morality, however primitive and parochial, must have (long) predated cults or religions, and developed along side, or in spite of, them.

I have heard atheists suggest that there can be an objective morality if we agree on a subjective point; a derivative if you like. However, that doesn’t in and of itself make the morality objective. — Franz Liszt

True. Consider below, however, a proposal for 'moral objectivity' (i.e. ethical naturalism) which isn't derived from ... "if we agree on a subjective point":

i. Is 'nature' an objective fact?

ii. Are 'natural species' objective facts?

iii. Are each natural species' 'needs for maintaining health, capability and growth' (akin to Spinoza's conatus) objective facts?

iv. Is the (potential for) deprivation of any of an individual's 'species needs for maintaining health, capability and growth' (Harm) an objective fact?

v. If the (potential for) deprivation of any of an individual's 'species needs for maintaining health, capability and growth' (Harm) is an objective fact, then doesn't it follow that 'the knowledge of how & when to prevent or minimize (actual) deprivation' is objective as well?

vi. If 'the knowledge of how & when to prevent or minimize (actual) deprivation' itself is objective and thereby a capability of every functioning individual of a given natural species, then doesn't it follow that (adequately) exercising this capability is also a 'species need required for maintaining the health capability and growth' of individuals and, by extention, the species? [ iii ]

vii. If (adequately) exercising this capability is also a 'species need required for maintaining the health capability and growth' of individuals and, by extension, the species, then doesn't it follow that individuals failing to (adequately) exercise this capability are objectively self-harming (i.e. depriving themselves of at least one of their own species needs ...)? [ v - vi ]

viii.

'Ought' one to self-harm
(a) by harming others?
(b) by ignoring the harm to others?
(c) by ignoring the self-harm of others?
(d) by ignoring one's own self-harm?

ix. If the 'species needs required for maintaining health, capability and growth' are the natural ends of each individual [denial of this conditional amounts to a performative contradiction], then each individual OUGHT NOT to self-harm – fail to (adequately) exercise knowing how & when to prevent or minimize (actual) deprivations of 'species needs for maintaining health, capability & growth' – by preventing or minimizing (a) harm to others or (b) ignoring harm to others or (c) ignoring self-harm of others or (d) ignoring one's own self-harm. [ vii ]

x. The expression may be subjective but the argument, in so far as it isn't fallacious or invalid, is not only a matter of 'subjective preference' but is also conditioned by ("derived from") objective natural facts. Unless, of course, any or all are shown not to be the case ...

(Btw, my ingredients for this free-range gumbo consist mostly of various portions of e.g. Laozi, Confucius, Epicurus, Spinoza, John Dewey, Albert Camus, Iris Murdoch, Albert Murray, Derek Parfit, Philippa Foot, Clément Rosset, Owen Flanagan ... & Martha Nussbaum. Bon appétit. :yum: )

My question is if anyone can explain why they would believe this, and how it’s okay for morality to be subjective. — Franz Liszt

You forget that religious morality is subjective. All morality is subjective, but, as you say, we can choose to agree on a presupposition like, for instance, human flourishing being the goal for human behavior.

Remember that religious believers don't agree on moral positions even within their own tiny slither of religious dogma. Just take the Protestant faith in the Christian tradition.

Believers hold contradictory and often mutually hostile views on: the role of women in church and culture, gay marriage, capital punishment, euthanasia, human rights - to name a few hot issues. I have met Christians, even within the same church who hold views that gay people are morally wrong and will go to hell and by contrast, others for whom sexual preferences are of no interest to god. What does god think?

Herein lies the problem. Religious people base their morality on their subjective preferences of what they think god wants. Be very careful around people who think they know what a god wants.

Justify it? No. Not in the philosophical sense of the word justify.

But you could justify it to yourself, and I don't know if most people really need a philosophical justification to do good things anyway.

I'm a theist myself mind you, but it's often done in the following ways.

People form groups for survival. The purpose of a society or group of people is burden sharing, ie. if someone experiences a tragedy, the rest of the group can fulfill his or her role(s) either temporarily or indefinitely, with little to no or at least minimal negative impact on the overall survival of the group as a whole. The more burdens we remove from a group or society (the criminal minded, murderers, thieves) the less resulting pain, anguish, and just wasted time there is, thus benefiting the society and moving it forward if not for the simple reason there's more times to focus on work or leisure without worrying about/being weighed down by the negative emotions that result from said burdens.

Furthermore, the days of world wars have largely ended. So the lifeblood of the modern day economy is now trade, resources, services, etc. Say you have two lands, Pretoria and Esotropia. Pretoria has stricter laws, safer streets, and much less crime than Esotropia. Why would I want to live and work in Esotropia when I can do so in Pretoria? Show me a neighborhood or region whose streets are riddled with crime that people actually want to move in to that has a vibrant economy, and I'll show you a purple horse.

Morality is an unavoidable biological reality, created by hormones, emotions and psychology. Morality justifies itself to the intellect, just like, sexual attraction or emotion. Logic doesn't justify morality, morality is woven into the logic we use by this biological reality. You can direct its shape somewhat but you can't turn it off, morality is a part of what it means to be human.

The question assumes that people must justify themselves to other people.
This is an assumption based on moral realism. One might as well cut the crap and declare supremacy.

I find it unhelpful to approach the subject of morality from a perspective that recognizes differences, big or small, in the moral codes of different peoples for the simple reason that it muddies the waters. I'm of course not saying that there are such differences, there are and that, like it or not, proves that morality has a subjective component. I'm more interested in or would suggest a shift in focus to the obvious fact that all peoples seem to have a sense of right and wrong i.e. morality, despite differences at the level of actual do's and don't's, is universal; in other words, peoples may differ on what exactly they believe is right and wrong but they all agree that there's such a thing as right and wrong.

It's kinda like a group of people who've never met, know nothing about each other, who come from different backgrounds, all agreeing that they should, together, host a dinner party (morality) but they disagree on the date of the dinner (differ with respect to what exactly they consider is good/bad).

In that sense then morality is objective for all agree that there's such a thing as morality. The differences that exist between morality of peoples can be pinned down to culture, religion, social factors, etc. and don't come as a surprise to anyone.

As for the nexus between god and morality, all I can say is morality necessarily had to precede god for it didn't we wouldn't have gotten to the point where we gave the matter of god any serious thought, granting evolution is true of course.

As for the nexus between god and morality, all I can say is morality necessarily had to precede god for it didn't we wouldn't have gotten to the point where we gave the matter of god any serious thought. — TheMadFool

This is interesting! Can you say more about it?

This is interesting! Can you say more about it? — baker

There's nothing to it really. Some kind of morality/ethics must be in place for social organization, right? God entered the scene, so to speak, only after or, more accurately, only within long-established societies; it follows, does it not?, that morality preceded humanity's encounter with the idea of the divine. It's like saying "checkmate!" and then, with the same breath, announcing that you don't know the rules of chess.

My question is if anyone can explain why they would believe this, and how it’s okay for morality to be subjective. — Franz Liszt

Morality is the normal devolution of the atrophied human attribute of conscience so it must be subjective. Morality is conditioned values while conscience is a priori knowledge we are born with that can be remembered.

1954
“We will be destroyed unless we create a cosmic conscience. And we have to begin to do that on an individual level, with the youth that are the politicians of tomorrow…. But no one, and certainly no state, can take over the responsibility that the individual has to his conscience.” Albert Einstein, in Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man by William Hermanns (Branden Press, 1983, p. 141. Conversation in Summer of 1954)

But the sad reality is that it does appear that humanity as a whole does not want to remember and prefers the slavery of indoctrinated man made interpretations called morality to replace the perennial attribute of conscience.

:up:

I'm curious about your choice of title for this thread. It seems to have no relation to the question you pose, unless you assume, but neglect to explain, that you believe "religion" (whatever you may mean by that) provides a basis for an objective morality and doubt that anything else can. Alternatively, you may be trying to establish that if religion provides no basis for an objective reality, nothing else does either, thereby making the religious view of morality no less subjective than any other. Just curious, as I said.

Thus, morality, however primitive and parochial, must have (long) predated cults or religions, and developed along side, or in spite of, them. — 180 Proof

I don't follow this. Whether religion predated morality is an empirical question, and since our history books don't go back that far, the best you can do is guess. I don't think you can logically deduce the history of human ethical and intellectual development.

It seems just as reasonable to assert that humans became interested in the source of their existence and the cause of everything (metaphysics) prior to their interest in right and wrong (ethics) and therefore God was inserted at that earlier stage. At least in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Chapter 1, verse 1 begins with a description of Creation, with ethical directives coming after that.

God entered the scene, so to speak, only after or, more accurately, only within long-established societies; it follows, does it not?, that morality preceded humanity's encounter with the idea of the divine. — TheMadFool

That's taking for granted the theory of evolution. I'm not going to do that, I need something more robust, something that isn't at the whim of empirical data and its interpretation.

Also, it requires being a hard atheist, which is just another a dogmatic position.

It seems just as reasonable to assert that humans became interested in the source of their existence and the cause of everything (metaphysics) prior to their interest in right and wrong (ethics) and therefore God was inserted at that earlier stage. — Hanover

What if God placed that interest in the hearts of men to begin with?

What need is there to justify morality, by the way?

Questioner: "Prove that you should be moral, Ciceronianus!"
Ciceronianus: "Why should I do that?"
Questioner: "Well, if you don't, then you haven't proven you should be moral!"
Ciceronianus: "Okay."
Questioner: "But if you don't prove you should be moral, you don't have to be moral!"
Ciceronianus: "Why shouldn't I be?"
Questioner: "Because you haven't proven you should be moral!"
Ciceronianus: "Why should I do that?"

Person: "Kill that person, Ciceronianus!"
Ciceronianus: "No."
Person: "Then prove that you shouldn't kill that person!"
Ciceronianus: "Why?"
Person: "Because if you don't, then you may kill him!"
Ciceronianus: "Why should I do that?"

The mistake in the OP is to think in terms of objective/subjective rather than is/ought.

:up:

So you really think it's more probable than less that any group of human beings sustained itself for generations without, more often than not,
(6th) not killing each other
(7th) not fucking each other's mates
(8th) not stealing from each other &
(9th) not lying to each other
only after they'd agreed to tell themselves a story about their deity "commanding" them not to commit those acts? Explain it to me, tell me what I'm missing – how such eusociality itself is not constituted by socialized habits, or norms, of 'help-more-than-harm' reciprocity before they're encoded (religiously / culturally) as "morals". Anthropological examples please. Or if not, a reasonable speculation on how it is even possible for a cultus of 'divine permissions & prohibitions' to precede normative moral judgments & conduct (which is like saying 'languages came before, or generated, speech' or 'minds came before, or generated, bodies' ...)

It seems just as reasonable to assert that humans became interested in the source of their existence and the cause of everything (metaphysics) prior to their interest in right and wrong (ethics) and therefore God was inserted at that earlier stage.

For a few individual humans, plausibly; but it's not "reasonable" at all for groups of humans to have concerned themselves with "the source of their existence" before being primarily consumed with securing their collective survival & procreating, which entails normative 'best practices' – group-survival strategies (e.g. pro burden-sharing contra freeriders) – for adapting to their natural environment as a group. Even Exodus depicts the ancient Hebrew tribes "wandering in the wilderness for 40 years" before they reach Mt. Sinai as "a people" (i.e. customary socio-cultural group).

Also, it requires being a hard atheist, which is just another a dogmatic position. — baker

Most Christians accept evolution. Not sure where the hard atheism comes from.

Anthropological examples please. Of it not, a reasonable speculation on how it is even possible for a cultus of 'divine permissions & prohibitions' to precede normative moral judgments & conduct (which is like saying 'languages came before, or generated, speech' or 'minds came before, or generated, bodies' ...) — 180 Proof

I really don't know how to approach this question from either an anthropological perspective or upon speculation. We seem to be referring to some sort of primordial man, right? Is this a single bacteria beginning to replicate in an unusual way or are we referring to whatever emerged from the sea to later grow legs, or however the story goes.

But let us assume we have a man who has the mental capacity of a dog, something I know a little about, having 4 dogs running about my house right now. If early man was dog like, I would expect it would engage in all sorts of community behavior designed for its survival. There would be norms within the dog group, but not norms formed around any ethical theory, but probably just formed around Darwinism. Whether these emerging dog men would first ask themselves the source of their emerging ethical awareness of whether they'd first wonder and opine about the source of the rain that keeps falling on their head, I don't know. I don't think, though, that you can simply look at the behaviors of these dog men and declare them cognizant of an innate ethical system just because they don't kill one another than can you do the same for ant, spiders, or lizards. That is to say, it is obvious that all sorts of organisms engage in survival seeking behavior that have no mental capacity whatsoever and no concept of ethics. I think it's reasonable to assume therefore that they might engage in behaviors that are socially acceptable within the group but not recognized as being morally anything.

Does Pretzel think it's unethical for Fred to get 2 treats to his 1?

Even Exodus depicts the ancient Hebrew tribes "wandering in the wilderness for 40 years" before they reach Mt. Sinai as "a people" (i.e. customary socio-cultural group). — 180 Proof

I might be misreading the point of this reference. The ancient Hebrews were a people prior to reaching Mt. Sinai. Yahweh demanded to Pharaoh to "let my people go" which is what landed them in that great big desert in the first place. The giving of the commandments was not the beginning of the ethical system either, as that began with the Noahide laws, which occurs after the heavens were separated from earth, or however that story goes.

The giving of the commandments was not the beginning of the ethical system either, as that began with the Noahide laws, which occurs after the heavens were separated from earth, or however that story goes. — Hanover

I beg to differ.

A cursory glance at wikipedia shows that though both Genesis & Exodus were compiled and "canonized" in 6th - 5th centuries BCE during the Babylonian Exile, both consist of much older traditional stories which biblical scholars & archeologists attribute as follows:

(a) "Moses" lived & died during the 13th century BCE (thus, roughly the time-frame of reception (establishing) the ten commandments @ Mt Sinai);

(b) "Noah" came from a composite of two different narratives from the 10th & 7th centuries BCE, respectively (with no mention of "the great flood" in any Hebrew narratives before "Noah" and that "the Noahide laws", which biblical scholars tell us, were extrapolated from the ten commandments by rabbinical authorities in the 2nd century BCE for inclusion in the Tosefta)

so there aren't any grounds for the claim that Mosaic Law was preceded by the "Noahide laws" and thereby not the beginning of a "divinely commanded" ethical system for the ancient Hebrews.

My point, though, that by mere dint of being a people for decades, at least, before Sinai, the tribes already had social customs & norms of interpersonal conduct for burden-sharing that discouraged-excluded free-riders – a functioning indigenous ethical system – which had maintained them with some sort of ongoing cohesiveness as a people, I think, still stands.

But let us assume we have a man who has the mental capacity of a dog ...

I don't assume that. It's unwarranted. We're talking about modern homo sapiens, like you & me, Hanover, during the Bronze & early Iron Ages, no farther back than than three millennia ago. No need to go back millions of years for dog-like "mental capacity". :roll: Even so, as I've pointed, morality is constitutive of our eusociality as a species, an adaptive by-product of natural selection. I can't think of a single long-sustained human society or culture, whether religious or not – whether Abrahamic or not – in recorded history that lacks some level of burden-sharing (i.e. help-more-than-harm normative reciprocity) that discourages-excludes free ridering ... morality; can you?

My question is if anyone can explain why they would believe this, and how it’s okay for morality to be subjective. — Franz Liszt

If morality is rules of behavior that I just follow and I don't contribute to their content, then yea, they'll have an objective basis.

But if the rule is to treat others as you want to be treated, I'm involved, and my personal feelings are central. Still, the golden rule is beyond me.

If I'm a nihilist, I act out of love to the extent I have any love for other people. As it turns out, the more I see myself in others, the more pity I feel, the more I celebrate their victories, the more I just do treat them as I want to be treated. There's no code to this. It's amoral.

A cursory glance at wikipedia shows that though both Genesis & Exodus were compiled and "canonized" in 6th - 5th centuries BCE during the Babylonian Exile, both consist of much older traditional stories which biblical scholars & archeologists attribute as follows: — 180 Proof

I'm showing Genesis having been written in the 14th century BCE. https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/how-old-is-the-bible . Exodus was written around the 6th. The compilation and canonization dates aren't evidence of the age of the story, but only sets out the date when it was compiled and then recognized as sacred. I also recognize that the bible isn't a single work, but is something pieced together and edited over time

Regardless, the Moses story had to come well after Noah. The world was wiped out and then started over and Moses came along much later.

(a) "Moses" lived & died during the 13th century BCE (thus, roughly the time-frame of reception (establishing) the ten commandments Mt Sinai); — 180 Proof

I'm not committed to there being an actual Moses or that there's any historical accuracy to the Bible. The question isn't when Moses lived or died, but which came first, a belief in a creator or an ethical code. The point of this discussion is to decipher whether the metaphysical inquiry preceded the ethical inquiry.

so there aren't any grounds for the claim that Mosaic Law was preceded by the "Noahide laws" and thereby not the beginning of a "divinely commanded" ethical system for the ancient Hebrews. — 180 Proof

So Adam is man #1, he eats from the tree of good and evil, and then he recognizes being naked isn't right and proper, so he drapes himself with a fig leaf so all the world won't see his junk. That came way before Moses traipsed up the mountain and was provided a far more encompassing set of laws.

Even so, as I've pointed, morality is constitutive of our eusociality as a species, an adaptive by-product of natural selection. I can't think of a single long-sustained human society or culture, whether religious or not – whether Abrahamic or not – in recorded history that lacks some level of burden-sharing (i.e. help-more-than-harm normative reciprocity) that discourages-excludes free ridering ... morality; can you? — 180 Proof

I can't think of any semi-advanced animal that doesn't have some sort of social structure that prescribes mating rituals, hunting and gathering systems, infant rearing systems, hierarchies, resource sharing, home building, etc. The social organization of animals is innate, but I don't equate that to an ethical system which decrees certain acts right and wrong from an ought/should perspective.

At some point in the history of man, the rules went from the unwritten, unspoken, and unarticulated law of the jungle to an actual written or uttered law. That is when, I'd submit, ethics entered the picture is some real way. Prior to that, it was just instinct. I still don't see why that ethical code must precede a people's recognition of a creator.

There once was a group of Arabic ex-slaves so bereft of common decency that they had to write down a set of rules in order to remember how to behave around others.

Sadly, many others thought this a good idea.

The Greeks, and for a long time others around the coast of the Mediterranean, looked instead to how one might flourish - following Aristotle, or be happy - following Epicurus - or at least not be miserable - following Zeno of Citium. Ethics was about how to become a decent person, not about following rules.

Unfortunately it is much easier to follow rules than to engage in self reflection and improvement. Especially when you can pay for a lawyer. Or Bishop.

And so we have a common way of thinking about ethics that is assumed in @Franz Liszt's OP, where the key question is not "how can I become a better person?" but "Which rules should I follow?"

Can you justify morality without religion? The notion that one might need to justify doing the right thing is ridiculous.

I don't know if most people really need a philosophical justification to do good things anyway. — Dharmi

That would explain why they think the notion of ‘doing good things’ is objectively definable in the first place.

Not quite. Ethics was about what was good and wrong within the natural order of the universe. Aristotle termed it "the Golden Mean" it wasn't divine command theory, but ethics is based on natural law.

peoples may differ on what exactly they believe is right and wrong but they all agree that there's such a thing as right and wrong. — TheMadFool

In the same vein, people agree that there is such a thing as the familiar and the alien, the understandable and the strange. The problem is that morality , and its judgments of what is right and what is wrong , generally comes down to these dichotomies, so that morality is just another word for the drive to enforce
conformity.