Morality is not subjective

[McBell]

Nope - I see you cannot understand what I'm trying to say so I will give an example:

Suppose a group of people (of any number) decides they want to construct a square. This is their objective. If one of them builds a polygon with unequal sides, he would be objectively committing an immoral act (sounds melodramatic I know, but work with me here). This is because actions (almost all) have consequences (or reactions) that can be measured and documented if sufficient information is available. Therefore if there is a specific goal or objective, one can derive exactly the kind of actions that are required to reach that objective and one can also determine the kind of actions that will keep one from reaching the objective - the former being the moral actions and the latter being the immoral actions.

The morality problem in the real world therefore stems from two fronts. Firstly, people have different goals and objectives. Secondly, people do not have enough information to know what exact actions will help them reach their stated goals and objectives.

please be so kind as to reveal your moral measuring device and if you could explain how it works that would be great.

 

[McBell]

The Bible also has it's own standard. God set the standard through Moses, and Christ gave the example of the standard.

You will need to take that discrepancy up with YHWH.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

but murder as a whole can never be seen as something normal amongst the "in group".

Depends on how you define murder: I define in such a way as to include ritual human sacrifices.

 

[Thanda]

The number of individuals it takes for your dismissal of "individual absolute morality" becomes non-dismiss-able.

And while you are at it, please be so kind as to explain the "WHY" at this magic number it is no longer dis-miss-able.

It has nothing to do with the number. For a moral code to be objective it must make logical sense to every rational person.

 

[Thanda]

please be so kind as to reveal your moral measuring device and if you could explain how it works that would be great.

There is no device, only a methodology. You take the stated objective and you investigate whether any action or set of actions help to achieve the objective. If they do, then the actions are moral; if they don't then the actions are immoral.

 

[Nous]

but because people believe it is morally wrong to kill another person out of malice.

Clearly, many people, throughout history and today, feel it's just fine and dandy to bend and brake that law.

And? What is your point? My (first) point was that the fact that people hold differing beliefs about what acts are or are not moral does not imply that there are no objective moral facts.

Even entire nations and cultures have not only felt it ok to murder, in total mass, but they felt it their moral obligation to do so.

Every nation in the world today criminalizes murder. The disapproval of murder is obviously no socially relative.

 

[jonathan180iq]

Every nation in the world today criminalizes murder.

Unless of course that murder is state-sanctioned, or "for the greater good"...

Even the criminalization of murder is relative to the political whims of that group. We can pretend that it's somehow objectively wrong, or morally reprehensible, but we're just fooling ourselves.

 

[Nous]

If morality is objective outside of the mind similarly to physics, then show me somewhere else in this universe apart from Earth where these "moral facts" exist.

I don't know of any objective fact that has a location in space.

 

[Nous]

And, in fact, people's moral codes in different periods and cultures, as exemplified by their legal codes, are and have been extraordinarily similar. Every nation in the world criminalizes murder, not because there is something fun about prosecuting murderers but because people believe it is morally wrong to kill another person out of malice.

The killing of other humans has been and is still socially acceptable given the correct circumstances.

My comment was explicitly about murder (not about, e.g., killing another human in self-defense). Every nation criminalizes murder. The disapproval of murder is not relative to societies.

 

[Nous]

Every nation in the world today criminalizes murder.

Unless of course that murder is state-sanctioned, or "for the greater good"...

If you know of any nation that does not criminalize murder, then cite it.

 

[Nous]

You take the stated objective and you investigate whether any action or set of actions help to achieve the objective. If they do, then the actions are moral; if they don't then the actions are immoral.

So you believe that for a man to break into a woman's house in order to accomplish the objective of raping her would be a moral act?

People are extraordinarily confused about moral realism these days.

 

[Augustus]

Every nation criminalizes murder.

That's a tautology. Murder is necessarily a crime.

 

[Nous]

That's a tautology. Murder is necessarily a crime.

The fact that every nation criminalizes murder is not a tautology. The act of killing another human with malice aforethought does not have to be criminalized, any more than the acts of rape, assault or theft have to be criminalized.

 

[Augustus]

The fact that every nation criminalizes murder is not a tautology. The act of killing another human with malice aforethought does not have to be criminalized, any more than the acts of rape, assault or theft have to be criminalized.

Murder relates to unlawful killings only. It is a linguistic construct.

'Malicious' killing has always been permitted in the right circumstances, see IS's 'justice' system for the most flagrant contemporary example.

 

[Nous]

Murder relates to unlawful killings only. It is a linguistic construct.

'Malicious' killing has always been permitted in the right circumstances, see IS's 'justice' system for the most flagrant contemporary example.

So you do not dispute that the act of killing another human with malice aforethought is criminalized in every nation, that such an act does not have to be criminalized in any nation, and that disapproval of such act is not relative to nations. As Oliver Wendell Holmes noted, "The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race."

 

[McBell]

I really wish you guys would stop misusing the word murder.

 

[Augustus]

I really wish you guys would stop misusing the word murder.

What is the 'correct' usage of the term in your opinion?

 

[Augustus]

So you do not dispute that the act of killing another human with malice aforethought is criminalized in every nation,

Do you consider that throwing a homosexual off a tall building does not qualify as killing with 'malice aforethought'?

 

[McBell]

What is the 'correct' usage of the term in your opinion?

Murder is an unlawful killing.

 

[Augustus]

Murder relates to unlawful killings only.

I really wish you guys would stop misusing the word murder.

Murder is an unlawful killing.

I agree.