Does Objective Morality Exist?

Morality

  • Objective

    Votes: 37 51.4%
  • Subjective

    Votes: 35 48.6%

  • Total voters
    72

anagram.nagaram

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Then how come Orthodox Christians don't read every gospel that used to be in the bible? Why do they read the Catholic version that edited what was or was not included in the Bible?
Interjecting into this conversation to add:

Atheist's love to say that scripture has been modified and portions have been added and removed by powerful leaders but this simply is not the case. In every instance I've researched the books subjected to confusion and conspiracy attain their status through a rigorous process of verification. They surfaced too late after their supposed authors. They often contradict existing scripture.

In the same way, many existing books only exist because they survived the scrutiny of the church. After Jesus's death the bible was finalized and since then nothing has been added or removed.

To haphazardly say that the bible is a scrapbook assembled by churches groveling for power is like posting a meme on "The true pagan origins of Easter". It's just words until you provide solid evidence.
 
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Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意

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Interjecting into this conversation to add:

Atheist's love to say that scripture has been modified and portions have been added and removed by powerful leaders but this simply is not the case.
You can't say this is not true when we had the Council of Nicea. It was a lengthy council done primarily by leading figures in the Catholic church where they discussed what currently followed scriptures were canonical and noncanonical. Whether or not those books were valid or not pre-Council of Nicea, there were entire sects of Christianity that formed around these scriptures that the Catholic church persecuted.

In every instance I've researched the books subjected to confusion and conspiracy attain their status through a rigorous process of verification. They surfaced too late after their supposed authors. They often contradict existing scripture.

In the same way, many existing books only exist because they survived the scrutiny of the church. After Jesus's death the bible was finalized and since then nothing has been added or removed.

These scriptures only contradict Catholic and modern Orthodox Christian interpretations of scripture. For example, the Book of Thomas did not contradict the Gnostic understanding of scripture, but it did contradict what the Catholic church taught.

Also, it is not true that the gospel waa finalized after Jesus death as most gospels can only be dated back to as early as 30 years after Jesus's death. That means all New Testament scriptures were written almost an entire generation after his death.

To haphazardly say that the bible is a scrapbook assembled by churches groveling for power is like posting a meme on "The true pagan origins of Easter". It's just words until you provide solid evidence.

It is not hapharzard to say that the current form of the Bible was, in fact, churches groveling for power to some extent. As, once again, the Catholic Church actively persecuted other Christian sects an even executed other Christians for the crime of not following Catholic teachings.
 
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anagram.nagaram

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You can't say this is not true when we had the Council of Nicea. It was a lengthy council done primarily by leading figures in the Catholic church where they discussed what currently followed scriptures were canonical and noncanonical. Whether or not those books were valid or not pre-Council of Nicea, there were entire sects of Christianity that formed around these scriptures that the Catholic church persecuted.



These scriptures only contradict Catholic and modern Orthodox Christian interpretations of scripture. For example, the Book of Thomas did not contradict the Gnostic understanding of scripture, but it did contradict what the Catholic church taught.

Also, it is not true that the gospel waa finalized after Jesus death as most gospels can only be dated back to as early as 30 years after Jesus's death. That means all New Testament scriptures were written almost an entire generation after his death.



It is not hapharzard to say that the current form of the Bible was, in fact, churches groveling for power to some extent. As, once again, the Catholic Church actively persecuted other Christian sects an even executed other Christians for the crime of not following Catholic teachings.
Again, there is plenty of bad information on this topic. The council of Nicaea had 1 primary goal and 2 minor ones, non of which are what you mentioned.

I'm not sure about the Gospel of Thomas though, I'll research that sometime.
 
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InsufferableCynic

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Christianity : - )

it is THE moral system, pagan must adhere to nature, watch wolf devour small sheep, accept it is 'natural', Christian can watch this and firmly say that it is not good
Ah yes, the objective, unchanging moral standard that is Chrsitianity.

So tell me, which of these is more objectively true?
Calvinism? Methodist? Lutheran? Anglican Communion?

Literally every aspect of Christianity is up for debate.

Are baptisms required? Depends on the denomination
What about tithing? Depends on the denomination
Is it okay to have sex outside of marriage? Depends on the denomination
What about gay/female ministers? Depends on the denomination

Calling Christianity an effective objective standard for ANYTHING is hilarious since Christians can't even agree on their own doctrines.

It literally took over 300 years to decide if the England should have a state church or not.

Christian morality is as subjective as everyone elses. Under Calvinism we don't even have free will, let alone morality - we are destined to heaven or hell and there's nothing we can do about it. Christians can't even decide if human moral decision making even exists, let alone whether or not it's objective.

The typical bullshit answer to this is usually "oh but those other denominations aren't following the TRUE interpretation of the bible", which presents 2 problems. Firstly, they all say the same thing about you, why should I take your interpretation as any more valid than theirs, and secondly, the mere fact that there are different intepretations should tell you just how objective Christian morality is. The mere existence of denominations is reason enough to discount the idea of objective morality within Christianity, especially since it's not like something which is ACTUALLY objective where you can point and say "well look, they just measured the stuff wrong, here's how you measure it properly" as if it's some scientific measurement. It's always people reading the same passages in different ways and then arguing opinions.

Christians don't actually believe in objective morality. They never have. They are actually moral authoritarians, which just moves the subjective morality from the individual to the authority. They just pretend to believe in objective morality because it allows them to preach to the "moral relativist" masses, especially since it's pretty common knowledge and uncontroversial to claim western society has basically become degenerate over the last 2 decades, and they are shilling a fake product to "fix all our moral problems". But it's all a lie. Don't listen to their bullshit. Don't fall for it.

This is why Christianity continually adapts and updates it's "objective and ever unchanging" morality to stay relevant. Just look at their opinion on slavery over the centuries. First, slavery was justified as being "what will bring these people to God", now it's an "abhorrent atheist act that God has always opposed".

Christians are a meme. All religion is stupid but Christianity has some of the dumbest, most confusing and contradictory ideas I have seen from any faith ever, and to see it shilled so hard in this thread by so many people as if it's a serious intellectual position makes me cringe.

I don't mean to turn this into the religious debate thread, but every argument I have seen for objective morality so far has been some cringe reinterpretation of subjective morality based on bad logic, or a word salad of "universal morality", as if morality is some tangible thing we just happen to interact with. Objective morality will never exist. It's a human concept. Stop trying to invent it, you're wasting time.
 
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ev13wt

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Interjecting into this conversation to add:

Atheist's love to say that scripture has been modified and portions have been added and removed by powerful leaders but this simply is not the case. In every instance I've researched the books subjected to confusion and conspiracy attain their status through a rigorous process of verification. They surfaced too late after their supposed authors. They often contradict existing scripture.

In the same way, many existing books only exist because they survived the scrutiny of the church. After Jesus's death the bible was finalized and since then nothing has been added or removed.

To haphazardly say that the bible is a scrapbook assembled by churches groveling for power is like posting a meme on "The true pagan origins of Easter". It's just words until you provide solid evidence.

The church.
Doesn't have interest in power and controlling their sheep and getting more sheep.

Noooo... They would never...
They also never rape kids either...
 
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Ah yes, the objective, unchanging moral standard that is Chrsitianity.

So tell me, which of these is more objectively true?
Calvinism? Methodist? Lutheran? Anglican Communion?
orthodox christianity, not responding to the rest because im drunk, goodnight and Godbless, and continue to seethe hahahahahahahahaha PepSiDawgwitcan
 
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The church.
Doesn't have interest in power and controlling their sheep and getting more sheep.

Noooo... They would never...
They also never rape kids either...
tghats the catholic church you faggot also the wqhole church rape ring was purposefully released because of the vatican finance scandals that were also coming out just before, look into bishop pell from australia, fake scandal about him abusing kids (yeah it just takes 3 seconds to lift up an entire priests garment and all he did over his many years was flash some kids while a service was happening while they were within sight range of parents) while he was investigating mismanagment of MILLIONS of vatican dollars
 
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Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意

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Again, there is plenty of bad information on this topic. The council of Nicaea had 1 primary goal and 2 minor ones, non of which are what you mentioned.

I'm not sure about the Gospel of Thomas though, I'll research that sometime.
Ah, yes I see, a website with almost no sources whose purpose is to run counter to commonly accepted historical findings. There certainly is some very bad information on this topic out there.
Even then, this article that you linked goes into great detail about the many, contradictory, Christians works and how there was no cohesion. Even setting aside the idea that the Council of Nicea "created the modern bible" this site states that "The key purpose of the Council, however, was the resolution of the Arian Controversy over the status of Jesus as "God the Son" in relation to "God the Father" in the doctrine of the Trinity.". While this is fairly accurate, it is a misrepresentation of the totality of the Arian Controversy in which the following is attributed to: "Emperor Constantine, through the Council of Nicaea in 325, attempted to unite Christianity and establish a single, imperially approved version of the faith. Ironically, his effort were the cause of the deep divisions created by the disputes after Nicaea.[1][2]"

We can see clearly that both before and after the council occurred, there was division in what was considered proper Christian teachings, formally around the idea of who exactly Jesus was and what his position in the faith was. As Jesus teachings were the basis of the morality presented in the Christian sects, both his reason for teaching and from where his teachings come plays an important role in how the teachings are interpreted.

The act of determining which scriptures were accurate representations of their interpretations of the teachings is, in fact, determining what was considered canonical or non-canonical to their interpretation.

The article also says this "But it seems that the "heresy" of Marcion was what gave second century Christianity the impetus to begin to define which of these various texts had the status of "Scripture" and which did not.[...] Marcion was struck by the strong distinction made by Paul between the Law of the Jews and the gospel of Christ. For Marcion, this distinction was absolute: the coming of Jesus made the whole of the Jewish Law and Jewish Scriptures redundant and the 'God' of the Jews was actually quite different to the God preached by Jesus.".

While the author claims that there was no deciding the canonicity of scriptures, they also state "The statement of the Council on this matter formed the Nicene Creed which became the basis of future Christological formulations (and the subject of later disputes on the matter). ", which is an action that would heavily influence which scriptures could be considered canonical. The simple fact is, they convened to discuss what the "real" foundation of Christianity is.
 
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Invoking morality is just an implicit threat of either social ostracization or physical violence if someone steps too far outside of the norms of a group or a society. This is not a bad thing, for example I think we're all happy to live in a society where murder is considered illegal and immoral. However, anyone at any time could choose to step outside the bounds of those norms and decide that they don't care about the consequences, and at that point it would be pointless to invoke the concept morality without also taking real action against them.
 

Caspar

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I want to settle this once and for all by tapping into the infinite wisdom of Agora.

I tend to argue from the viewpoint of objectivity for the following reasons:
  1. All people are aware of the fact that they can commit evil.
  2. All people know when evil is being done to them.
  3. The existence of moral disagreements is not proof of subjective morality. Rather it is evidence of free will. Example: the disputes regarding abortion are not whether it is right or wrong but rather it is murder or not.
  4. From a naturalist perspective, the universe is made possible by consistency and laws. If these laws were not absolute then the universe could not exist.
Arcadian State, reduced resolution.jpg

1. Depending on what you're defining as evil, sure. In the sense that I can do harm to another's best interests, yes.
2. I don't think so. One can be deceived about what is happening to oneself.
3. That's a possible explanation. Another possible explanation is that moral disagreements are caused by differences in people's hardware, they process reality in slightly different ways and regard things differently on a level you can't really alter. Or maybe it's firmware, and you can rootkit it (brainwash them). The supposition of liberalism is that it's software, which I completely disagree with - people clearly have certain points at which reason is insufficient and only by going at their subconscious habits can they be moved (fallacies/rhetoric).
4. That will be totally true once entropy has completely diffused all energy and matter to the point of equilibrium across the cosmos, at which point there will of course be no life left to make this argument. I'd contend that life is made possible by opposing forces of consolidation and diffusion of energies and this leaves life as a sort of sinusoidal experience. My morality (if I should call it this) is definitely not based on what makes the universe possible, but based on what enhances life.

I'd argue that morality can be conceived in a few ways, all of them relative to one's place in a world which is necessarily in flux. There are certain similarities across time, but by no means should they be extrapolated to being 'the one truth to rule them all'. Moreover, morality should be felt as being in tandem with life, at one with oneself. A moral code which opposes one's natural sense and understanding is not meant for you. If this means you will be a devil to other men, then so be it - have the courage of your immorality. But I don't think this will largely be the case as men are largely quite similar creatures.
 

anagram.nagaram

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View attachment 36375
1. Depending on what you're defining as evil, sure. In the sense that I can do harm to another's best interests, yes.
2. I don't think so. One can be deceived about what is happening to oneself.
3. That's a possible explanation. Another possible explanation is that moral disagreements are caused by differences in people's hardware, they process reality in slightly different ways and regard things differently on a level you can't really alter. Or maybe it's firmware, and you can rootkit it (brainwash them). The supposition of liberalism is that it's software, which I completely disagree with - people clearly have certain points at which reason is insufficient and only by going at their subconscious habits can they be moved (fallacies/rhetoric).
4. That will be totally true once entropy has completely diffused all energy and matter to the point of equilibrium across the cosmos, at which point there will of course be no life left to make this argument. I'd contend that life is made possible by opposing forces of consolidation and diffusion of energies and this leaves life as a sort of sinusoidal experience. My morality (if I should call it this) is definitely not based on what makes the universe possible, but based on what enhances life.

I'd argue that morality can be conceived in a few ways, all of them relative to one's place in a world which is necessarily in flux. There are certain similarities across time, but by no means should they be extrapolated to being 'the one truth to rule them all'. Moreover, morality should be felt as being in tandem with life, at one with oneself. A moral code which opposes one's natural sense and understanding is not meant for you. If this means you will be a devil to other men, then so be it - have the courage of your immorality. But I don't think this will largely be the case as men are largely quite similar creatures.
Love the painting.
On point two, It's true people can be deceived about this.
On point three, I would agree that people can be brainwashed or more accurately blinded. An addict is unable to evaluate her condition during a drug-induced trip.

On the conclusion, Has there ever been a civilization where cowardice is praised and where breaking vows is considered good? This is of course a very basic requirement but it seeds the idea that there is a law called morality which underpins civilization. So maybe good is in fact absolutely good.

Hope to converse more in the future.

1815_Schinkel_Mittelalterliche_Stadt_an_einem_Fluss_anagoria.jpeg
 
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Caspar

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Love the painting.
On point two, It's true people can be deceived about this.
On point three, I would agree that people can be brainwashed or more accurately blinded. An addict is unable to evaluate her condition during a drug-induced trip.

On the conclusion, Has there ever been a civilization where cowardice is praised and where breaking vows is considered good? This is of course a very basic requirement but it seeds the idea that there is a law called morality which underpins civilization. So maybe good is in fact absolutely good.

Hope to converse more in the future.

View attachment 36377
be06833ee18a2857e484cce5b661903b.jpg

Thanks, Thomas Cole's set of paintings 'The Course of Empires' is one of my favorites. If you ever get around to it, Aquinas' Summa, though seemingly dreadful based on its size, is actually quite readable. He basically writes philosophy like how a competent programmer structures their code. Generally, this is quite dry, of course. It's just my intuition, but based on the phrasing of 'absolute good' rather than the mitigated form 'good' and the procession of Spanish going to a Cathedral, I would suspect his thoughts to be along your way. More readable would be Lewis, Chesterton, or Belloc.

Altogether notwithstanding, I digress. I don't like to start with advocating nihilism and deconstructing arguments, though I could, and we could get into circular arguments about epistemology and eventually faith. Maybe end up debating whether there's a demiurge if things get really funny. But none of that really concerns me, it's true there's commonality in certain moral virtues across ages, it's also true that even though many morals remain the same, the order of importance often shifts such that some become radically de-emphasized or others over-emphasized. In our modern age, we don't say 'courage is bad', but we say 'safety is greater'; traditional societies generally say the reverse. Another thing is also true, it is ubiquitous that morality is abridged often for a what is called a 'greater good' - another way of simply saying power for me and mine. Now, I'm of mixed opinions about whether the metaphysical entity called 'morality' really exists; it's quite probable that it exists as in the same vein as mathematics, say, but to say that mathematics represents a higher truth is a bit silly - math is a tool for human understanding. If you use certain formulae to try to predict something that doesn't actually act in the same manner as the formula, you can come out with something which is mathematically correct, but factually inaccurate. Similarly, morality codified tries to aim at some general good that people intuitively feel, but it is also the case that humanity has a large number of blind spots - similarly, calculus was a mathematical blindspot until it was re-invented. Despite it being a general truth that should be graspable by all, there it was: invisible to all, nay obliterated out of history and forgotten! I think morality is very tentative, I think that we probably perceive mirages in it, we inject our biases into it to serve our interests and that there are some 'archetypes' and 'nodes' that recur consistently enough that we can take them semi-seriously.

Why semi-seriously? Because morality itself is tentative from the human perspective alone. It seems to exist, but it could in totality be a rhetorical mirage, similarly to how mathematics is merely a projection of the human conception of order onto the cosmos. If you have faith, this is bridged, of course. I don't; I used to, but I don't. But I did say semi-seriously, what should be taken seriously, now that I've put up so much for uncertainty? Which particular moral virtues you take seriously are almost certainly going to be the affects of your interior nature and circumstances, sometimes one's interior is so overpowering it ignores the world, sometimes so fluid it follows whatever place it arrives upon. In this particular sense, I don't believe in judging, merely in taking account of and acting accordingly. But this still isn't an answer, then put simply: you should take seriously the moral virtues which bring you the life best lived and which ensure all life about you is best lived - and it is a life best lived which takes no account of danger, but which lives for the sake of reaching the highest peaks and between what is near and what is far, you had ought to prefer the good of that which is nearest ahead of that which is furthest in any competition of the two.

Why? I could give any number of poetic responses, which I love to do, but ultimately this is my nature and I would never answer otherwise.

Edit: grammar
 
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There is no objective morality, and i feel like all of the arguments for it in this thread just appeal to man-made concepts and claim that This Is The One without any actual proof or explanation. Morality itself is a man-made concept.

  1. All people are aware of the fact that they can commit evil.
  2. All people know when evil is being done to them.
  3. The existence of moral disagreements is not proof of subjective morality. Rather it is evidence of free will. Example: the disputes regarding abortion are not whether it is right or wrong but rather it is murder or not.
  4. From a naturalist perspective, the universe is made possible by consistency and laws. If these laws were not absolute then the universe could not exist.
1 & 2 - These are both obviously untrue. People can commit 'bad' actions without realising they are bad, and in the same way people can be abused and treated poorly without realising anything 'bad' is being done to them. Just think of abuse in relationships. The abuser will a lot of the time not think they are doing something wrong, that they are in fact doing something correct and justified and fully within their rights, while the victim might believe, or be forced to believe, that they deserve what is happening to them.
Just think of all the fucked up evil shit that has been done in the name of religion and Higher Good by people who thought they were doing the right thing.

4 - I'm addressing 4 first because i can expand on my thoughts better from 3. The universe does have consistent laws, as far as we know, but that doesn't bear any relevance to morality. Morality is not universal, it is not 'natural' or a part of nature. Morality was invented by humanity, for humanity. You cannot compare morality to gravity or any other law of nature, because these laws of nature have been proven with the knowledge that we have, while morality cannot be concluded or explained in any objective way that is above-humanity.
Objects will continue to obey gravity, and friction, and thermodynamics, and whatever else, regardless of humanity's existence, but without humanity there is no 'morality' to speak of.

3 - It's correct that the existence of moral disagreements doesn't prove subjective morality, in a hypothetical world where objective morality exists someone could easily disagree with it, but that's not the case in this world. (also no that's not what the abortion discussion is about, it is about whether it's right or wrong, but whatever that doesn't really matter)
The existence of morality proves subjective morality because it is something humans came up with.

I've seen arguments in this thread appealing to God or whatever religious text, which, i don't know, i feel it isn't really an argument that really holds up to scrutiny, because just like with saying it's a "law of nature", you can't really explain how your morality came from God, or why this book in particular is correct. It's a book written by humans. It does not come from any source that can be proven as divine or above-humanity.

I've also seen people say that objective morality is whatever the Law or the government or state says, which, Lol, Lmao, no. Just because a group is in power, and therefore gets to decide the rules and what 'morality' is, does not make those rules and morality objective. Just because an entire society is bound to comply to a set of rules does not make that objective. That is not what objectivity is.

Humanity created morals because people have a will and therefore make decisions based on what they think is good or bad, even if it's a very primitive and simplistic morality such as "what benefits me is good, what does not is bad". For human interaction and the building of groups to work, people have to come to agreements, that's all that morality is, objectively speaking - certain groups and peoples in certain places coming to general agreements, and these agreements are different all over the globe and even within the groups themselves. It is not a law of nature.
That does not mean that what a big group decides on is objectively correct. In fact, morals and laws created by leaders and elites of a group and usually made and followed in a way that keeps the ones in power in power, and compels the ones below them to obey them.

Of course I have an idea of what is morally correct and incorrect, as does everyone, but i don't believe it's in any way objective or that it comes from a higher-than-man source. My morality is something that i have developed within a certain societal context, and so is everybody else's.
 
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Morality is derived from our subjective experience of the world, there was a post much earlier in this thread which explicated this view wonderfully. But I believe that each of our experiences have certain shared characteristics. If you and I had no shared experience, we wouldn't be able to communicate using language. Of course, there will be outliers, but there is an experience of what it is like to be a human. We happen to be aware, we happen to experience certain sensations which we evaluate certain ways, and we happen to be able to communicate some facets of this with others. Based on this shared human experience, we develop moral systems which all have similar characteristics but place emphasis differently. Most moral systems seem to agree that killing is bad if it is not justified - killing is bad in and of itself and requires justification to be seen as good. The justification might differ depending on the culture, but there is a baseline of human experience from which each culture develops a system of morality.
 

handoferis

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Morality is derived from our subjective experience of the world, there was a post much earlier in this thread which explicated this view wonderfully. But I believe that each of our experiences have certain shared characteristics. If you and I had no shared experience, we wouldn't be able to communicate using language. Of course, there will be outliers, but there is an experience of what it is like to be a human. We happen to be aware, we happen to experience certain sensations which we evaluate certain ways, and we happen to be able to communicate some facets of this with others. Based on this shared human experience, we develop moral systems which all have similar characteristics but place emphasis differently. Most moral systems seem to agree that killing is bad if it is not justified - killing is bad in and of itself and requires justification to be seen as good. The justification might differ depending on the culture, but there is a baseline of human experience from which each culture develops a system of morality.
Do we know this for sure though? Or is it survivorship bias? I think I said earlier in this thread that it's entirely conceivable there was a "nothing wrong with murder" culture (probably in prehistory) and they just murdered each other out of existence, and therefore this type of society never made it forward through the years.
 
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Do we know this for sure though? Or is it survivorship bias? I think I said earlier in this thread that it's entirely conceivable there was a "nothing wrong with murder" culture (probably in prehistory) and they just murdered each other out of existence, and therefore this type of society never made it forward through the years.
certainly this could be have been something that existed at some point, but what matters is that, if they did, they don't anymore, precisely because a group like this probably couldn't survive for an extended period of time.
i don't believe there's a wholly objective and universal "human experience", in the same way there isn't a universal objective morality, but civilisations and cultures survive and evolve through an interplay of different experiences. so i do agree that "murder without a justification is bad" can generally be considered a "universal" moral sentiment, even if not in a technical sense, but that's because today we're living in much more global societies where common sentiments and agreements on morality have to be common between different cultures for them to intermingle successfully.

the people of north sentinel island, if they were to someday successfully communicate with someone from a different country, would certainly have completely different ideas of what the "generic/universal human experience" is. in an even more extreme hypothetical case, a baby/child who was abandoned in a forest and somehow survived up until adulthood without meeting any other humans would have an even more different view of the "human experience".
the human experience is entirely malleable and subjective to each individual and each culture. even the common experiences of biology could be, and are, uprooted
 
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Caspar

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Do we know this for sure though? Or is it survivorship bias? I think I said earlier in this thread that it's entirely conceivable there was a "nothing wrong with murder" culture (probably in prehistory) and they just murdered each other out of existence, and therefore this type of society never made it forward through the years.
Or they still exist, and we call them 'soldiers' or 'criminals' today, depending on whether they do their business to trumpets and banners or in alleyways and at night. I think this is a sort of first-order thinking with regards to an evolution of mankind. It supposes that differing elements simply don't exist, when it seems more likely that they either exist in a subdued form or they exist in more concealed forms than before. These alternate moralities probably very much do exist, but they haven't seen outward expression in some time; you call this a 'murderer's morality', but would a culture like that be concerned with only the act of killing? Certainly not, their lives would have plenty to it besides which, so if they were going to divide from today's man on this ground, what other grounds would they be different on? In some ways, their morality may have offer something better in certain respects.

If anything, I'd argue on this line of thought that morality is just whatever the powerful advocate and the weak digest. And the contradictions that lie therein are just the idiosyncrasies of those in power. And I'd caution about assuming that we've reached 'apex morality'. There's a reason why a variety of types in an ecosystem is good; if something happens that changes the ecosystem, and the only constant is change, it would suck if everything in that ecosystem died because of too much similarity.
certainly this could be have been something that existed at some point, but what matters is that, if they did, they don't anymore, precisely because a group like this probably couldn't survive for an extended period of time.
i don't believe there's a wholly objective and universal "human experience", in the same way there isn't a universal objective morality, but civilisations and cultures survive and evolve through an interplay of different experiences. so i do agree that "murder without a justification is bad" can generally be considered a "universal" moral sentiment, even if not in a technical sense, but that's because today we're living in much more global societies where common sentiments and agreements on morality have to be common between different cultures for them to intermingle successfully.

the people of north sentinel island, if they were to someday successfully communicate with someone from a different country, would certainly have completely different ideas of what the "generic/universal human experience" is. in an even more extreme hypothetical case, a baby/child who was abandoned in a forest and somehow survived up until adulthood without meeting any other humans would have an even more different view of the "human experience".
the human experience is entirely malleable and subjective to each individual and each culture. even the common experiences of biology could be, and are, uprooted
I agree with a caveat. The human experience is malleable and so is its perspective, but this is only if you're looking at it as an outside observer - or pretending to. Real, live human beings are the products of time, and are subject to it just as much. I can't adopt the morality of pre-Uyghur Taklamakan tribal men just as much as they couldn't adopt mine, even if we are both 'human'. If you want to phrase it like this, every human being has his inherited hardware, firmware, and software, and it becomes exponentially harder to change things the more fundamental you get, even if over centuries and millennia, we can observe those changes. From the perspective of a man within time, the best way to develop one's morality - and morality meaning here, a tool for your self-fulfillment, is to look to history, to one's country, and to one's genealogy to discern what is really needed and change what about oneself needs changing to satisfy the needs of the times.
 

SELCOUTH

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Morals are simply our instincts pulling together to articulate a set of rules to live by to help us survive. Nothing more, nothing less. It's why the human mind is so malleable and subject to change. Once the moral compass starts getting in the way of group survival it gets thrown out the window. Look at those kids that crashed their plane in the Andes mountains in the 70's, none of them would have ever thought of resorting to cannibalism, but as soon as it became an issue of group survival they wound up cannibalizing their dead friends eventually. In any normal circumstance this would never happen, and even so, there were times in history where things like this WERE normal circumstances. Our morals as a society are always shifting to fit these changes in circumstance, and an individuals morals are also subject to change under different circumstances too.
 
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