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
What? So just because I happen to agree with your stance, I also have to concede that there’s such a thing as objective morality?
Morality is subjective by definition.
People who down vote genuinely believe objective morality is possible, but it’s literally impossible and it’s incredibly obvious and self evident this is true.
It’s only self evident if you accept your own morality is subjective. There are people who think morality is defined by some invisible friend who is right about absolutly everything.
Yea, plus divine commandment theory has so many holes, that it could be a sieve.
“God created this world, hence god defines what is good”. Why?
Let’s even agree to go with the statement above. How would you even verify that an entity was god while writing your commandments? Is it not possible that an organism with superior tech was trolling you?
In a single line, how do you differentiate between God and an imposter?
Just five minutes of thinking can lead to these questions that destroy divine commandment theory. People just refuse to think…
But… But… You just don’t have faith! (Blind, unsubstantiated (that’s the point - god shouldn’t have to make you believe or prove his existence, you should just have… Faith) trust in the concept in question)
That’s the get out of jail free card used by many religions. It’s easier than accepting your entire worldview is wrong…
This is no conclusion. You can call it objective. All moral is based on subjectiveness: Different people have different morals. Especially ideology can have different morals. For example Nazism has a morality that the (in the eyes of the ruling party) “weak” kin should be exterminated and the “strong” kin should spread more and survive.
This is a moral standpoint, and because objects like “good” and “bad” are based on moral, the political correctness of the moral is subjective.
In ideology there is no right and wrong if you have no premises and no moral yourself, so to speak, if you’re really objective.
Calling something objective is in truth just reactionistic.
But of course I think that in any debate there should be moral premises, like for example a democratic parlament should always have the premise: “for the people”.
In reality it’s quite different sadly.
Of course different people again have different understandings on what makes everyone in a democratic society happy, but for example right wing parties that praise capitalism or fascism there are definitely people that would gain from that.
Capitalism has the consequence that the rich get richer, and so to not devalue the currency, the poorer have to get poorer, even if they don’t get less money, but the amount of money that exists devalues the money of the poor. Inflation. And if political power can be bought through lobbying or corruption, there does not exist a democracy.
Fascism has the consequence that one group of people become absolute and govern the rest which is definitely not democratic.
This seems to assume reality is only that what can be measured by humans currently. But decisions have consequences even if we can not foresee them. To assume that there is no objective morality assumes that consequences were random or exist independent from causes.
And if political power can be bought through lobbying or corruption, there does not exist a democracy.
I have to disagree there, in that I think it’s a bit more subtle.
There will always be people who seek power for self-enrichment and at the same time those people who see having power over others as a great responsability (who would probably be the best in terms of fair and honest yielding of that power), often avoid it exactly because they feel the “weight on their shoulders” would the too much to bare.
So you’ll always have at least some people holding power who use it for personal upside maximization, including via corruption.
Your really can’t have a perfect Democracy totally free of crooks in power, as even if you magically made it so, lots of people seek power for personal upside maximization and sooner of later some would get through.
Instead, what Democracy has is whole concept of the 3 independent Pillars Of Democracy, the Political, the Judicial and the Press, which watch each other and have some for of power over each other (the Press indirectly via influencing voters), and that’s what’s meant to create a sort of “dynamic” balance as crooks seek power but at the same time crooks in power are getting caught and thrown out (even punished).
Now, if you look at some of the most flawed of Democracies (personally I don’t think they’re trully democratic because their voting systems are mathematically heavilly rigged to create a power duopoly) - the US and the UK - you will notice that the Press was subverted first (and this has been going on long enough and deep enough that some people genuinelly believe partisanship - i.e. taking sides in Politics, so submission to a Political Party - in the Press is a good thing) and then the Political system became more and more corrupt, with in the US the additional problem that even the Judiciary pillar has been subverted at several levels by the Political pillar (not that in the US there was ever much independence of between them to begin with as lots of top positions in the Judiciary are of political nomination).
Anyways, all this to say that we’ll always have pressures making political power “buyable”, hence why its so important to understand the function of and protect the other Pillars of Democracy and their independence as they’re part of the mechanics which pushes the other way, and whilst the system cannot achieve and remain perfect in a static way, it can achieve a dynamic balance that as the crooks get found out, kicked out and their deeds undone.
Capitalism has the consequence that the rich get richer, and so to not devalue the currency, the poorer have to get poorer
I don’t think that’s true in an economy where the population is constantly growing. It’s like saying in a utopia where everyone has the same wealth, having kids would make everyone poorer.
How is one Patrick agreeing equal to objective truth?
We get it, you want slavery back, therefore viciously beating you to death is morally acceptable because the consensus admits your life has no value.
the logic understander
Honestly it’s more disturbing that you don’t think something can be “bad” unless it’s “objectively bad”. are you a christian?
So is this meant to be a cryptic argument against objective morality and for less ethical actions? Group consensus and moral relativity can apply to… Idk, the Nazi regime?
OR is this an argument saying we need more people to agree about what is “objectively” moral if we want it to become true? Democratically around consensus?
I imagine this argument has been used in bad faith more than it has been used in good faith.
Patrick here is meant to represent most people who lean towards moral relativism but haven’t thought it through. In their daily lives they think that certain things are obviously bad (e.g., chattel slavery) and they also think that we should work to better our society. But then they also think that there is no such thing as objective good and bad; morality is just relative to some group consensus.
But if moral relativism is true, then you can’t say that slavery is universally bad; slavery was a morally acceptable action for the slave owners because they agreed that black people are inferior. Similarly, there is no motivation to work towards a “better” society, because what we have now is exactly as morally good as anything else we could agree on in the future. The objection is that moral relativism is incompatible with our conception of moral progress as an objective good.
First of all I think this was very helpful and was educational for me. But I can also see that people are always making moral objections. Many people did want to abolish slavery for many years before it happened. Doesn’t that standard mean slavery was also morally wrong in a relative way? Or does it only matter what the slaveholder believes about their action?
All versions will agree that morality depends on some group consensus. Different variations of moral relativism could vary by which group consensus matters. To simplify things, let’s imagine a world in which there was only one slave in a society of people who thought slavery was a good thing. In this scenario, the moral relativist would say that slavery is good for this community, because these people agree that slavery is a good thing. Even though the one slave strongly disagrees with everyone in their community.
This is an obvious problem with moral relativism, but people in this thread either think that morality is subjective by definition or think epistemological uncertainty about morality entails moral relativism.
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Moral relativism does not mean you agree with different moral standards, and it does not mean people lack any moral standards
I never said or implied this. I can only infer that you misunderstood what I’m writing. Moral relativism says that an action is good or bad relative to the situation that it’s committed in. So if everyone in a culture thinks female genital mutilation is good, the relativist will argue that is is morally acceptable for those people. But they can’t say that an action is universally right/wrong and, to me, that seems to limit their ability to say that actions done in one context are preferable to actions done in another. I don’t see how that leaves room for moral progress.
Now, you aren’t providing any reasons for your view; you’re stating your view and emphatically claiming I’m wrong. I’m happy to have a dialogue about the subject but you have to, you know, actually give an argument. How do you view the moral relativist position and how is that conception consistent with moral progress?
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I’d assume it got removed because the title didn’t include rule, but the modlogs just calls you unhinged.
Honestly I think I agree with the modlog.
It got removed because it was posted in 196 lol
I too highly suspect most moral relativists are full of shit and don’t actually believe in it. Ya’ll don’t believe in moral progress? A society of chronic rapists is not inherently bad outside of your societies or personal preferences? The overwhelming majority of moral decisions being relative doesn’t discount that at least one very important concept can be capable of superceding our preferences.
Moral “progress” only happens because of our collective judgement of what is right changing over time.
I expect this response despite the indication of its issue. Were nazi’s morally rigtheous in gassing millions of innocent people to death because they believed so? At that time that was their ‘progress.’ Independent of other socities or yourself having any issue, it’s simply fine to say that because a nazi thinks it’s fine, it is fine?
I don’t think so, and I don’t think that injustice is dependant on my preference to view it that way. It just is wrong.
Of course the Nazis weren’t right by our standards, and of course they were/are by their own. But by what universal standard can we judge their morality against ours? How can we know that what we think is right is the objective morality?
Saying “it just is” really just means “I think so”, and it there’s as much reasonable backing for you to say it “just is” wrong to be a nazi as there is for someone to say it “just is” wrong to be gay.
There is a distinction to be made between epistemology and ethics. Just because it is unclear how to judge an action as good or bad doesn’t mean that there isn’t a fact of the matter.
So if there is an objective truth of morality that exists beyond our judgements, in what form does it exist? Is it a fundamental part of the universe? Did it exist before humans? Or is it a part of us?
Saying that something isn’t objectively quantifiable (like morality)
isn’t a value judgement on it
Subjectively the morality of your example is abhorrent, but objectively you cannot, cannot , cannot! quantity it! Morality only exists in our minds! That doesn’t make it any less meaningful, but it makes it
not
objective
So you also say that mathematics is subjective?
You can quantity maths. It’s the prime example of something objective and quantifiable. No I’m clearly not saying that.
What I mean with “exists only in our minds” is that it isn’t some externally measurable thing. There is no moralometer which can measure the morality of an action. It only exists to us, humans. That makes it subjective.
If you’re wondering about the meaning of the previous comment it is to clarify that saying there are no objective moral truths doesn’t mean I am dismissing morality. It just means that objectivity isn’t applicable to it.
it would be real nice if moderation on Lemmy gave you some sort of notification of what you did wrong.
I once got comments removed and community banned and found some explanations on the mod log on the bottom of the website of the instance
I don’t use 196 but aren’t images on there supposed to be funny? That’s probably why this was removed.
196 community can have some very strict moderation at times. Mods were/are on the lookout for sus political takes. 🤷♀️
They were banned for this post: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/3769100
Which seems pretty extreme to me, but what can I do?
aren’t images on there supposed to be funny?
the rule is you have to post when you visit, it doesn’t say anything on what you have to post.
Maybe you can tell me what the numbers 196 are supposed to reference/mean. I’ve seen memes from there but there’s no theme that I can detect.
It’s the successor to 195, which was named after the creators’ apartment number
That’s amusing. Thank you.
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
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.
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!
Sam Harris doesn’t like this idea, lol. “morality is wellbeing!”, well then what is wellbeing to a bad person? it’s all relative
Professional philosophers don’t take Sam Harris seriously. He’s a smart guy, but his take on free will is dismissive of established philosophical literature. That is, he could do more to read and then engage with published philosophy; but maybe he doesn’t think he has to since his work isn’t intended for academics.
Sounds an awful lot like groupthink to me. Having differentiating takes is the point of philosophy.
In a sort of snarky way one might even say that studying it defeats the purpose, because of pollution and all that.
Shit meme, so apt for the community, I guess. Patrick represents a guy stating his own morality, which doesn’t oppose the final sentence, meaning this meme doesn’t follow the expected format nor does it have a point whatsoever.
Can’t something be objectively immoral whilst simultaneously being something that some people like to do? Does the objective morality of any given action need to be linked to a specific groups preference?
Slavers liked to keep slaves but it didn’t make them right to do it. Im sure the slaves didn’t enjoy it. Objectively, it’s morally wrong to gain from somebody elses loss. The fact that people are happy to do it doesn’t affect moral objectivity.
I think your confusing objective with universal. They aren’t the same thing. You can have an objective truth that isn’t universal. Let’s use Euclidean and non-Euclidian geometry as an example, both have very objective truths, but they aren’t the same or interchangeable.
The problem with saying slavery is universally immoral is that you label most everyone that existed prior to the modern era as immoral, because slavery was foundational across the globe in multiple cultures. Morality isn’t useful if you can actually compare or contrast because even involved was immoral.
Objectively it’s morally wrong to gain from someone’s loss. So… winning anything? Schadenfreude? A profitable short position? Picking a penny up from the ground?
Anyway, the specifics aside… how do you arrive at the conclusion that it is objectively wrong to gain from someone else’s loss?
Winning anything? Is that always at someone elses detriment? Are you saying that because there are winners, there must always be losers? Because i would argue that winning something doesn’t cost the ones that didn’t win anything. We all started at the same point. As losers (or not winners), they have the same that they did before. Only the winner sits at a different state.
If my gain causes suffering of others, then even though i would be happy about my gain, it would still be wrong to cause that suffering to others.
Even animals have an understanding of morality. It is not limited to humans. Its just more pronounced and debated.
Animals understanding of “morality” is extremely different to what we as humans understand as moral, and I’d argue that you can’t actually ask them what they think is right or wrong, so you can’t really know if their behaviour is based on morality or… well, anything else.
Regardless, semantics aside my primary question was how you arrive at the position that “gaining from someone else’s loss is wrong” is an objective position to take… because I think that is just something you think is wrong.
You’re correct on your judgment but your opinion stems from a different social stance on the underlying issue.
(that sounded really pedantic and it was not my intention)
Morality is a human creation. By default, nothing is wrong or right, until a human mind, be it an individual or colective one, analyse it and evaluate it.
This does not mean you can not view something as being immoral while others do or understand it as not a moral concern. This difference of understandingb is what moves any subject into the moral/immoral spectrum.
Im not sure about that. Many animals show a sense of morality. The difficulty, i think, comes from the need to ascribe morals to everything we do and to find nuance that confuses the fundamental tenants of morality. At a basic level there are some things that many animals other than humans inherently know are good or bad.
Like what?
The capability, in other animals, to determine something as positive, negative or neutral only serves to demonstrate that we, humans, are only another organism built with previously tried and proved strategies, with a few added innovative add-ons.
Morality is a human creation and concern, built upon biological strategies previously developed and implemented in many life forms.
There’s a good amount of information on this article. Near the top, they list and cite instances where moral behaviour had been observed in animals. Where no apparent gain or loss occurs for the one behaving morally.
I understand your point of view, but you present as fact something that is currently highly debated theory. I try to posit only my views and opinions and try to avoid conflating them with facts.
I guess it’s better to attempt to philosophise when dealing with our views on morality.
“moral” and “morality” in that article is clearly a human construction, into which ties the notion of ethics, which is again a human construct
What is clearly pointed are several instances where selfless behavior was observed in diferent life forms, from birds to mammals, including primates.
If objective morality existed, we wouldn’t be arguing about those things since we would all be in the same agreement.
Even “murder is wrong” isn’t objective morally when you ask someone who believes in the death penalty.
This argument makes a fundamental mistake. Objective does not mean everyone agrees. Objective just means it’s true.
The earth goes around the sun is objectively true, but give me 5 minutes and I can find you someone to disagree with that statement.
Disagreeing with an objective truth just means you’re wrong.
Look at the upvote/downvote ratio on OP’s comment. That you all you need to know lol. Wish there was a !philosophymemes community on Lemmy
While that works with ‘facts’, it doesn’t work for opinions. A sense of morality is exactly an opinion or set of opinions that define what is and isn’t right. It is exactly mired in perspective and again this is very self evident.
Muslims say that music is Haram because it is said so in Hadith, does that make music objectively wrong? They believe when a religious authority states this is true, that the religious authority has made a canonical judgement ( fatwa ) that is basically binding.
Am I a heathen for liking music then?
I can’t believe people are so naive as to think objective standards for morality are even remotely possible.
Muslims say that music is Haram because it is said so in Hadith, does that make music objectively wrong?
That is the exact opposite of what the above comment said. An objective view of morality would say that the “rightness” or “wrongness” of the act of making music is an objective truth. If music is “right”, then music is right, regardless of what Muslims or any other people say, and vice versa.
It means you can’t come to a correct moral judgement just by taking a poll of the people around you.
That’s literally exactly how all humans work. Our ideas is morality come from our peers, and culture. That’s all relative and very mutable.
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The universe doesn’t exist in human terms though. Stars don’t care about genocide, or abortion. Black holes don’t care about gender or identity issues. I’m certain the universe does not exist on human terms, and human morality is only an idea that has meaning to other humans.
I don’t believe there is a single valid, unassailable concept that can prop up the idea that objective morality is likely, or even possible.
Would morality exist once the last human dies? Did morality exist before? It’s just a useless question.
“Objective just means it’s true”. No it doesn’t. How do you even define “truth”? How do I know that I am not the only real person and that all of u r NPCs? How do I know that I am not in a simulation? Now, discussing about the simulation hypothesis is dumb, as it is unscientific in nature. It is not testable.
What is true can be established only when it goes through the scientific method. Hence, an “objective” statement is that statement that would be agreed upon using the scientific method by a certain consensus.
Morality is not testable. Hence, the scientific method cannot be used here. Hence, it can never be objective.
Patrick’s last sentence is still consistent with everything that he said above. He expressed HIS opinion and HIS morals above.
No ethical framework can be truly objective. This is because there is no universal constant that backs any ethical framework. We need universal constants to verify an objective statement. For example, the speed of light is the same in all frames of reference. Also it is measureable. How do you measure the permissibility of an action? We do not know.
In conclusion, Patrick was right when he implied that there was no objectivity in ethics.
I’m seeing this point about moral epistemology a lot in this thread. Of course, philosophers have constructed convincing arguments in favor of different theories (classic ones being virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism). If you were to take a look at those arguments you might be persuaded to one camp or another.
Also, I find this objection makes more sense for the moral skeptic than the moral relativist. If we really can’t know the moral value of an action, then why settle for saying its based on what humans think? Why not just go all out and say either 1) there is no such thing as moral value or 2) there is moral value but we have no way of knowing what it is.
If we really can’t know the moral value of an action, then why settle for saying its based on what humans think
I never said that we can’t know the moral value of an action. All that I’m saying is that the moral value of an action is dependent on the entity giving the value. Morals cannot exist without beings capable of having morals.
Why not just go all out and say either 1) there is no such thing as moral value or 2) there is moral value but we have no way of knowing what it is.
Because saying either of these two statements would not reflect reality. There IS a thing such as moral value. It’s just not constant for all beings capable of having morals. For the second option, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that there is indeed a universal moral constant. Hence, “knowing” that value goes out of the window.
Blahaj will remove anything that makes anyone mildly uncomfortable, including having to think too hard
I don’t like the way moderation is handled in general. I keep posting things I think will be allowed that get removed and there is little explanation and no notification. You have to dig up your post in the modlog of that instance and the rules are pretty much up to the interpretation of the mods.
For example, if you make a meme about “Eating the rich”, that’s fine. If you make a meme about abortion, ban hammer incoming.
So host your own instance 🤷♂️
Lemmy version of “oh you’re poor? just learn to code lol”
Holy shit you’re so right.
Good
There’s a segment of the community that makes their delicate sensibilities everyone else’s problem. Unfortunately that segment contains the mods.
That’s the nice thing about federation, you don’t have to interact. If you don’t like how a community is run, don’t participate in it, or even defederate.
100% correct! I don’t enjoy the culture and moderation style there so I don’t usually participate. I’ll comment on something if it makes it into my all feed or something, I don’t actively avoid them either.
It’s our instance and our communities. The mods represent us, or there would be feedback from our instance’s users saying they disagree with moderation.
The mods represent the users that haven’t been banned*
Important distinction
I mean, if you look at the modlogs, most bans have a reason And the reasons are things like xenophobia, transphobia but in more words, general troll vibes, etc. Not just because someone doesn’t like the mods
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“delicate sensibilities” is just a poorly disguised way of saying you don’t care about other people’s feelings, though
I mean that the debate right? To what extent do we allow people’s feelings to dictate public behavior?
I agree everyone should be respected, I support and am a part of the LGBT community, but some things just aren’t worth getting that offended over.
Hey OP you are allowed to message a community mod and ask them if they are able to give insight about your posts being removed, by the way.
Kinda just as annoying as digging through the modlog tho, yeah? With a coin flip on if they want to respond.
Lemmy could use a consistent mod-to-user interface
Everything regarding moderation is pretty lacking from what I’ve heard
Don’t write off our whole instance, damn. Yeah, its a transgender instance and our community has put up with a lot of bullshit arguments both outside (gender critical) and inside (transmedicalism). We generally nip it in the bud.
I think 196 community mods are very strict, though. The rules there are basically skeptical of all political posts, and I would understand if more meme and political meme communities arose with less strict rules.
I still poke my head every now and again and see what’s up but it definitely Isn’t my main instance. More power to yall though, that’s what federation is about
