Hello everyone. I am new here and will hopefully be posting regularly. Just a little background information. I am a psychology major and a philosophy minor. My interests in philosophy are mostly centered on epistemology and ethics. Consequently my interests in psychology deal mostly with cognition and ethical development. I am agnostic and would classify myself as libertarian at the moment, but I am still forming my political opinions.
However, the question I wanted to ask is: In your opinion are all ethics relative to culture/individuals/situation? Why do you think so? Or are some things wrong regardless of what people believe? What is the source of these objective ethics? A Supernatural deity, the natural world, etc.? Why do you think so? I know this is a big question but I would like some feedback. I personally believe there are certain objective ethics due to nature and may post my argument for why once I am satisfied with it. Until then I look forward to your replies. Thank you!
I looked up the article on Fear and Trembling on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) and kind of chuckled because I have been puzzled by how Christian religions justify the morality of the Abraham/Isaac tale. I will try and check it out, do you know how long it is by chance?
Oh and for anyone who is interested the IEP is a great peer-reviewed source for information about broad and specific philosophical topics http://www.iep.utm.edu/
this is not to say that they do not derive from somewhere; certainly they do. ethics derive mostly from human biology and neurophysiology, in that we are social animals who typically cannot survive without groups of other human animals. the need to interact with each other means that rules governing this interaction must be created and followed-- if anyone can do whatever they want, then the advantages of group membership are nullified.
culture provides the background for this development of morality, but it is not the JUSTIFICATION or the CAUSE of ethical rules. ethics vary from culture to culture, and in this sense they are culturally relative, but since culture is not the cause or justification of morals, cultural relativist ethical theories fail. as for situationalist ethics, this is more accurately a description of true ethical models-- what is “right” or “wrong” depends on context, always. to imagine morality without context is a contradiction.
as for the “source of these objective ethics”, as ive indicated, there is nothing objective about human ethics. to say that human ethics are objective is to say that some ethical “Law” or code exists in reality, as a fundamental aspect of reality itself independent of humanity-- however, this cannot be the case. there is no “you shouldnt steal or murder” written somewhere in the fabric of reality: in fact, stealing and murdering are necessary activities for all life. every time you eat, you are directly or indirectly taking a life. life ITSELF, the PROCESS OF LIFE is theft, murder, causing harm to others, expanding ones power and influence over his environment, which necessarily means “harming” or degrading that environment for your own ends. there is nothing wrong with this. life is a process, necessarily, of harming others.
saying ethics is grounded in the supernatural or a diety or the natural world is just an attempt to derive a justification for ethics outside of humanity, in order to objectivize ethical rules, i.e. in order to place man BELOW them. this serves social purposes in putting man down, demeaning him and making him feel scared, powerless and inferior in the face of an overwhelming and superior force, and of course this is how society (and usually its leaders) wants man to feel, for then he is more controllable, malleable and easily manipulated for social ends.
if you kill someone, you didnt violate some natural or supernatural “mandate” or “code” or “rule”; you arent going to get punished in any way by reality itself. animals kill each other all the time, for a number of reasons. its life. its how life survives. nothing wrong with it.
however, you WILL get likely punished by the society you live in, by the people around you who do not desire to be killed by you, and therefore create rules and enforcement of these rules to prevent and punish such threatening behavior. our personal emotional feelings of morality result partly from these types of social norms also; we have lived with guilt, shame, embarassment, fear, for as long as we and our ancestors can remember, and these feelings derive directly from our social conditionings. they serve to internalize social norms of control, so that we follow them “instinctively” because we would feel guilt and pain if we were to kill someone, and therefore we dont do it. its pre-emptive. however, these forms of conditioning are not a result of objective reality, but are human-derived in origin. physiological-based needs to protect yourself and your offspring (emotional motivations thus derived from) are extended to the community as a whole, to ones neighbors of the tribe. we are somewhat primed for this extention already, by hundreds of thousands of years of tribal life, in which our brains have adapted to generate empathy, sympathy, compassion, etc for the suffering of others… this is the result of evolution, the extension of caring-for emotions for the self and offspring to others beyond our own genetic lines.
in this way, ethics is internal, biologically-based. however, society also reinforces and further conditions us to obey and follow ethical laws. ethics are ARTIFICIAL CONSTRUCTIONS, they are not “in nature” or “in reality” in any way that is independent of man or his societies. your name is not written in some “sinner” somewhere book when you steal something, there is no santa claus putting you on a “naughty list”, and you are not going to have your actions judged when you die and thrown into hell if they dont add up in the right way… those are all absurd notions. ethics is a real force that is created by man’s need for social living, which is partly externally-caused by our modern society’s institutions and conditionings, and partly internally-derived from our countless years of evolution as a social animal. its as simple as that.
once you get past the subjective and artificial nature of ethics, learn to see through it, you realise you literally CAN “do what you want, whenever you want” as long as you understand and accept the consequences of your actions (i.e. detrimental feelings or emotions which are still hard to control, as they are a part of biology, or also legal consequences). ethics exists for a reason, but it does not exist independent of man, and therefore there are no “objective” or “universal” ethical laws, unless it be the case that a certain ethical code of conduct would entail across all peoples and cultures at the same time, which is however not the case (and even if it were, it would only speak to the social usefulness of the law itself, and not to any sort of “natural” or “supernatural” extra-human justification).
As long as you believe something can be right or wrong, ethics is objective.
Morals MUST be objective. Without a definition that all people are held to, we cannot have right or wrong.
The terrorist bombers in iraq believe they are doing what is right, we view them as wrong. Is it wrong? is it right? or is it neither? Because of the subjectivity, it and all other actions are in act not right or wrong, they have no moral value. Thus, moral subjectivity makes the idea of morals irrelevant.
Because (under moral subjectivity) every action can and does have a converse moral judgment, the basis for morality is destroyed. Without morality, values have no value. What is Justice when there is no morality?How can our justice system have the Audacity to judge something with no definition? We wouldn’t convict someone of a crime that doesn’t exist… why judge their actions with something that cannot exist? How can we say that a murderer is acting immorally? how can we know? in his mind, he might be doing what is right. Clearly we shouldn’t put people in jail for acting morally…
Because morals simply disappear when they become relative, it stands to reason that there must be some objective definition, regardless of if anyone has found it yet.
I think ethics are objective. The best comparison I can make to ethics is aesthetics. In the same way that there is disagreement over what is beautiful, there is disagreement over what is good. I’ve always viewed living as creating a work of art. the goal in life is to create the most interesting, beautiful life possible. Ethics are a major part of that.
As for how to handle disagreement on ethics, that is another aesthetic decision. The person who’s idea of interesting and beautiful is a valiant crusade against what they feel is wrong is just as right as the person who’s beautiful is tolerance.
my morality might put me in conflict with someone who’s morality is, logically, equally as right as mine, but fighting against their morality is part of mine.
Once an ethic is established, it becomes objective - regardless of it’s origins. Social consequences are part of the fabric of human reality. Yes, moral judgments are subjective, but an ethic is more than just an individual’s judgment. Even if it has it’s roots in subjectivity that subjectivity is nonetheless collective. Since all objectivity is based in consensus, a social more’ is more or less “objective” depending on how many people accept it as such. Ultimately, however, the subjective/objective dichotomy simply doesn’t apply very well to the ethical realm. Since it deals with observer and observed, it works better in the hard sciences, whereas ethics are about things like responses and justifications. They’re practical realities with their roots in human psychology, which makes them natural. They are not divine or supernatural in any way and would not exist if there where no human minds to generate and think about them. They are not written in the sky, but rather in the collective social psyche. So, basically, ethical rules are potentially as objective as anything else in reality, but since they are not as far abstracted from the practical realities of our workaday lives as, say, logical truths, they become harder, if not impossible, to universalize.
Are ethics subjective or objective? I would say the question is largely incoherent, or at least incomplete. They are not universal, but they are real things.
The objective/subjective distinction is a post-Christian hangover that modern philosophy is dealing with. Objectivity demands a God’s eye view of the situation and since there is no God, a God’s eye view is impossible (or, to broaden the argument slightly, humans have no access to the God’s eye view). This does make the distinction between subjective and objective a little blurry, but I don’t think the line is abolished. I’d generally say ‘objective’ is that which we can’t control through substitution of symbols. If I swap “red” with “rot”, the apple does not change. Indeed, if I were able to undergo some operation that would eliminate my color-blindness, the apple wouldn’t change either merely my perception/symbol for it. The apple creates the phenomenon, I’m merely interpreting it.
So are ethics objective? Well, they are created by humans but as has already been pointed out, they arise from concerns that seem to be universal or near-universal in humans so substitutions don’t seem possible. So they are objective from a human perspective. From a non-human perspective? I can’t even ask that question, let alone answer it.
well, i can’t speak for Xun, but i would say more from a non-conscious perspective - i’m sure some of the higher mammals have their own vestigial versions of ethics - after all, ethics deal mostly just with behavior - they don’t necessarily have to be about right and wrong per say, they can just be about custom.
Yes, what counts as “human” isn’t clearly defined there. I would consider anything that qualifies as a moral agent to be “human” for the purposes of that post.
You cannot establish objective ethics, thats the problem and as such that is why it is not objective. The core is subjectivity. The end is objective logical progression based on the subjective core values. Meaning anyone with the ability to comprehend beyond the immediate core values utilize to correlate the ethics would see the string of cause and effect to various issues beyond as a result of the subjective values utilized to define the ethical system. However, my last sentence does nothing for my argument, because ethics are subjective based upon their roots, which is what matters anyway… Ethics will be subjugated to various value changes to fix the end result anyways.
a semantic disagreement, i think - you can’t practically establish universal ethics, but established ethics are still definably “objective” in that they serve particular functions, apply in particular predetermined types of situations, outline particular modes of behavior, etc, etc - it mostly hinges on how you’re using the word “objective” . . . see below :
Insofar as i get what you’re saying, i don’t actually disagree with any of it - which is my problem with applying the “objective / subjective” standards to the ethical realm, it clouds the issue and raises semantic disagreements where there really shouldn’t be any. you and i simply mean different things when we are discussing objectivity. Unless you believe there is a fully and supremely objective reality outside of the collective subjectivity of conscious entities, then we really don’t disagree . . .
1 a: relating to or existing as an object of thought without consideration of independent existence —used chiefly in medieval philosophy b: of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind <our reveries…are significantly and repeatedly shaped by our transactions with the objective world — Marvin Reznikoff> — compare subjective 3a cof a symptom of disease : perceptible to persons other than the affected individual — compare subjective 4c d: involving or deriving from sense perception or experience with actual objects, conditions, or phenomena 2: relating to, characteristic of, or constituting the case of words that follow prepositions or transitive verbs3 a: expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations bof a test : limited to choices of fixed alternatives and reducing subjective factors to a minimum
Which if you wish you can provide your definition as to show how our disagreement is simply semantical.
Well, incomprehensibility doesn’t exist as an absolute, absolutes are something I try and avoid. In the case of human-like minds (as with other social mammals) we can understand their ethical systems to an extent. The less human-like the mind, the less comprehensible the ethical system becomes. For example, we can understand the herd hierarchy of dogs and take advantage of that just as dogs can understand those things which we find to be pleasing or displeasing. I can say “bad dog!” and a dog can look at me in a manner that suggests that it feels betrayed/cheated. On the other hand, saying “bad ant!” doesn’t make sense just as an ant can’t say “bad human!”.
The degree to which ethics depend on a people’s culture, upbringing, or mass opinion varies depending on the ethic in question. For example, keeping the Sabbath holy is a very specific ethic that applies to a very narrow group of religious followers. It’s hardly universal. But an ethic like ‘thou shalt not kill’ strikes a cord in almost every human being, and therefore can be said to be much more universal.
Yet there is another spectrum besides that between particular and universal: it is between relative and absolute. An absolute ethic is one that doesn’t depend on anything (like human sentiments or subjective perspectives) whereas a relative ethic does. Even those ethics on the extreme universal end, I don’t believe to be absolute - they still depend exhaustively on the human experience (however much they are the same across all human beings).
So I think all ethics are subjective in the sense that they depend on human beings - or at least some sentient intelligent consciousness - and their way of experiencing the world, but that’s not to say that all ethics differ from one person to another.