1y ago

Philosophy meme

Not sure why this got removed from 196lemmy..blahaj.zone but it would be real nice if moderation on Lemmy gave you some sort of notification of what you did wrong. Like an automatic DM or something

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wait until this place hears that killing babies is bad as an objective moral truth
- An overwhelming majority of people agree with that, but it doesn't mean it's not subjective
- Objective != Better/stronger/more true
  Just because something is clearly (to any sane human) true doesn't mean it's objective. It's can still be subjective.
  An objective moral truth is basically an oxymoron
  You can objectively say that humans think certain things are morally bankrupt but you cannot say that certain things are objectively morally bankrupt without specifying according to whom. Morals don't just float around space. Humans have them because of evolution and society.
  I think much confusion here is around the word objective. We seem to be defining it differently. The way I define it, and I think the most idiomatic way to define it, there cannot, by definition, be such a thing as an objective moral truth
  Edit: clarification
  
  You can objectively say that humans think certain things are morally bankrupt but you cannot say that certain things are objectively morally bankrupt without specifying according to whom.
  This is begging the question in favor of moral relativism. If there are objective facts "floating out there" about math, biology, etcetera, why can't there be objective facts about morality?
  If the answer is that it is difficult to know what the moral facts are: some facts are more difficult to find out than others. Physics didn't know about the Higgs Boson for centuries and yet here we are. Perhaps philosophy could do the same thing with moral truths in time.
  
  If there are objective facts “floating out there” about math, biology, etcetera, why can’t there be objective facts about morality?
  Because the objectivity of statements about math, biology, etc. can be verified by posing a scientific question. In other words, something like 1+1=2 is a testable claim. We have seen no occurrence of 1+1=2. Hence, we can say that "1+1=2" is a law of nature. "Moral truths" are simply not testable.
  If the answer is that it is difficult to know what the moral facts are: some facts are more difficult to find out than others. Physics didn’t know about the Higgs Boson for centuries and yet here we are. Perhaps philosophy could do the same thing with moral truths in time
  And the Higgs Boson became an "objective statement" only after it was verified. Prior to that, it was just a hypothesis. Do you have any scientific evidence to suggest that there are certain universal moral truths that apply to all humans?
  
  And the Higgs Boson became an “objective statement” only after it was verified. Prior to that, it was just a hypothesis.
  We might have two different understanding of what it means for something to be an objective fact. Objective truth/facts/reality exist independently of human understanding. If all the humans got together and decided that the Earth is flat, that wouldn't make the Earth flat. If scientists had never discovered the Higgs Boson, the particle would still exist.
  Alternatively, perhaps you already agree with that and your point is more about the objectivity of statements (i.e., our linguistic acts). And while I disagree with your overall stance on morality, I can see the logic in insisting that our statements about the world be verifiable/falsifiable. Historically, some philosophers held that words that cannot be verified are literally meaningless.
  So just to be clear, we can make a distinction between the objectivity of facts (e.g., physical facts, moral facts) and the objectivity (here, justifiability) of our statements about the facts. My stance is that there are objective moral facts. I concede the point that the justifiability of our statements about the moral facts is a difficult problem to solve. But finding the Higgs Boson was also difficult and we humans did it!
  
  so do you disagree with the original post?
  
  Yeah, I don't think there could exist such a thing as an objective moral truth - per definition.

272 comments