This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
Beta
Why is lying immoral?
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
457614
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
xaratherus
Until morality can be shown to be objective - i.e., an impartial and knowledgeable third party exists that can and will render judgment on a situation - then I assume it to be subjective. Thus, the statement, "Why is lying immoral?" is inaccurate, because in a subjective morality, lying may
not
be immoral in all - or any - instances.
Until morality can be shown to be subjective, I'm going to assume it's objective.
(See what I did there?)
Which is fine - but then I would ask, "Show me your objective judge".
From a Biblical perspective, even the Christian god is not qualified as objective. At times it is defined as a jealous being (showing an emotional attachment to the issue, rendering its objectivity questionable), and throughout the whole of the Bible it is shown that said being has at least a partial interest in its creations.
Post by
Thror
Morale =/= morality
Oh come on. Okay, i suck at English.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Which is fine - but then I would ask, "Show me your objective judge".
What does that even mean? If morality is based on a judgment, then it is clearly subjective.
A judgment can only be objective if it is based in something beyond itself (i.e. something intrinsically objective).
Until morality can be shown to be subjective, I'm going to assume it's objective.
Definition of morality: Beliefs or ideas about what is right and wrong and about how people should behave.
Nope.
Arbitrarily defining something isn't an argument. Definitions are used to serve arguments, not replace them.
Essentially your argument amounts to this:
I define morality as subjective, therefore it's subjective.
Post by
457614
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Nope.
Arbitrarily defining something isn't an argument. Definitions are used to serve arguments, not replace them.
Essentially your argument amounts to this:
I define morality as subjective, therefore it's subjective.
Then, how is morality defined?
Isn't that the debated question that this thread has lead to?
Post by
457614
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
457614
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I'd argue that morality cannot be defined without being subjective, and because of that, morality has to be subjective.
Morality is the accordance of man's actions with his God-created end.
Morality is the measure of similitude between man and God
vis-a-vis
free will.
Morality is the structuring of reality as realized in God and encountered by man.
There are three objective definitions I just randomly created.
If you're going to say that something necessarily can't happen, you need to show what is intrinsic to it to cause that to be.
Post by
457614
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
xaratherus
Which is fine - but then I would ask, "Show me your objective judge".
What does that even mean? If morality is based on a judgment, then it is clearly subjective.
A judgment can only be objective if it is based in something beyond itself (i.e. something intrinsically objective).
Objectivity is "an act of judgment undistorted by emotion or personal bias; a judgment based solely on quantifiable and observable data". An objective judgment, then, would be a judgment wholly free of emotion or bias.
In the debates that I've had with other theists regarding this, they propose that their deity is the objective judge - i.e., the one to render an unbiased and emotionless judgment. Thus why I asked that question; without such a being - or at the very least, without some infinitely defined set of universal laws regarding the actions of sentient beings - morality has to be subjective, because it lacks what is necessary for it to be objective.
Morality is the accordance of man's actions with his God-created end.
Morality is the measure of similitude between man and God vis-a-vis free will.
Morality is the structuring of reality as realized in God and encountered by man.
And there's what I mean: Your definitions all include the word "God" - i.e., your objective judge, or the objective source of the morality you propose. The basis of the definition is unproven; even if we hypothetically accept that such a being exists, it leaves the definition ambiguous since there are a plethora of gods that have garnered worship throughout history.
Thus why I said that until someone shows that one (or more) of those beings exists, I find it more rational to take morality as a subjective concept.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Those examples all assume that one accepts that God exists, and therefore, they are all subjective.
None of them assume
anything
about
anyone
accepting
anything
. While belief in God's existence is subjective, God's existence itself is objective: he either exists or he doesn't.
Objectivity is "an act of judgment undistorted by emotion or personal bias; a judgment based solely on quantifiable and observable data".
That's not even close to the technical philosophical understanding of what objectivity is. Journalism =/= philosophy.
Just to grab wikipedia, because it's the only thing I have readily available at the moment:
Objectivity is both a central and elusive philosophical category. While there is no universally accepted articulation of objectivity, a proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—
that is, not met by the judgement of a conscious entity or subject.
Post by
xaratherus
You are correct; I'm mixing up schools of argument. I applied an etymological definition of objectivity to a philosophical statement, which muddies the waters. I'm an armchair philosopher at best, please excuse me.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I didn't say it was the philosophical definition. The philosophical definition is mutable; Plato and Kants' definitions of objectivity are mutually exclusive, so how can both be right?
No. Their understanding of Objectivism (that is the theories they built up based on how they chose to understand the world's objectivity, though Plato didn't actually use the term objectivism) differed. There is no question of how we're supposed to understand objectivity, at least as a general term.
Post by
xaratherus
I didn't say it was the philosophical definition. The philosophical definition is mutable; Plato and Kants' definitions of objectivity are mutually exclusive, so how can both be right?
No. Their understanding of Objectivism (that is the theories they built up based on how they chose to understand the world's objectivity) differed. There is no question of how we're supposed to understand objectivity, at least as a general term.
Thus why I deleted the statement and replaced it to clear up that I was mixing up schools of argument, hehe.
Post by
457614
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
If God does NOT exist, then those arguments are broken. Taking God out of the equation gives you:
Morality is the accordance of man's actions.
Morality is the measure of free will.
Morality is the structuring of reality as encountered by man.
All of which implies morality is subjective.
That also means that man is incapable of objective morality, which is something I assume you base your reasoning on.
Your argument:
"If you make your definitions subjective, they become subjective. Therefore, morality cannot be defined as objective. Therefore morality is subjective."
If you can't see the flaws in that, I can't do much.
Post by
457614
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Your arguments are just as subjective, since they assume another of the
two possible objective truths
about God, that he DOES in fact exist.
There you go. You said it. They're based on objective truth, and therefore objective.
If he does exist, any one of them could be objectively true. If he doesn't exist, then they're all objectively wrong.
Post by
457614
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.