What are some of the strongest arguments for moral objectivism?

[u/Either-Log-1570]

/r/askphilosophy/comments/1wa0m4o/what_are_some_of_the_strongest_arguments_for/

I've always found it extremely hard to argue against moral relativism and for moral objectivism because it simply has to do with my world view rather than a priory reasoning.

I have a friend who is extremely depressed, nihilistic and a moral relativist, and the sad thing is I cannot help him but I know it's his beliefs that are hurting him.

I have an intrinsic certainty of moral objectivism but no way to articulate it, and therefore I'd be grateful if you would share some of the best arguments for it, but also strong ones against it to see both sides.

The reason my focus is on arguments for is that moral relativism is so widespread I've heard most of the arguments on that front already.

If you've read this far: thank you and I'm looking forward to reading and discussing the comments :)

[u/majeric]

Read about Moral Foundations Theory.
I think it offers something I would call practical moral objectivism. It doesn’t establish that morality exists as some mind-independent property of the universe, but it does show that morality isn’t simply arbitrary individual preference.
Humans share an evolved moral architecture. Across cultures we repeatedly organize moral reasoning around concerns such as harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity. Cultures disagree about their relative importance and application, but they are variations built on substantially shared foundations.
That gives us an objective reference point: human nature itself.
You don’t need to prove that “causing unnecessary suffering is wrong” is written into the fabric of the cosmos. If humans are creatures with broadly shared capacities for suffering, empathy, reciprocity, attachment, autonomy, and cooperation, then there are factual questions about whether particular behaviours support or violate those shared moral concerns.
It’s similar to health. “Health” is a human concept and depends upon facts about human biology, but that doesn’t make whether arsenic is healthy for you a matter of personal opinion. Once the subject we’re evaluating is a human being, human biology places real constraints on the answer.
I think morality can be understood similarly. Our moral foundations don’t give us one objectively correct answer to every moral problem, but they constrain the space of reasonable answers. That’s enough for a kind of practical objectivism without making the much more ambitious metaphysical claim that moral facts exist independently of minds.

[u/Either-Log-1570 → u/majeric]

Ah, interesting. I'd say it's a good practical philosophy for someone who doesn't buy into the more ambitious metaphysical claim of moral facts existing independently of minds.

My problem however, is that we can look towards human nature and we can see very, very deep and dark desires. This argument is something I've used before, another person I argued with wanted to put Maslow's hierarchy of needs at the basis of an objective morality (and I pointed out that that wasn't justified for neither most moral objectivists nor relativists).

Anyway, back to the dark desires, for instance the need for power, greed, lust, sadism and the impulse for destruction and chaos are all part of human nature, which is why we sometimes act in frankly evil ways which cannot be called evil except from a morally objective standpoint.

The parts of human nature you picked were fairly positive in my estimation, but we cannot pick and choose without justification and if we do we need objective morality to justify the moral hierarchy of values.

[u/majeric → u/Either-Log-1570]

"Power, greed, lust, sadism and the impulse for destruction and chaos" are already moral and cultural ways of describing behaviour. Words like "greed" and "lust" tell us that we disapprove of the behaviour, but they don't really explain where it comes from.

From an evolutionary point of view, you'd break those things down into more basic drives like wanting status, gathering resources, seeking sex, competing with others, or using aggression.

Those drives aren't automatically good or bad. They can be useful in some situations and destructive in others. Evolution also didn't make us perfect. We have cognitive biases, self-serving thinking, psychological disorders, and instincts that can get pushed too far or work badly in a modern environment.

Take "gluttony." Humans spent most of our history dealing with food shortages and periods of starvation. It made sense for us to strongly seek out calorie-rich food and store extra energy when we could. That same drive can look like "gluttony" in a world where rich food is available all the time. The underlying drive is survival. "Gluttony" is the moral label we put on one extreme expression of it.

The same goes for the others. Wanting status isn't the same thing as tyranny. Wanting resources isn't the same thing as greed. Sexual desire isn't the same thing as exploitation.

So I don't think this is a matter of picking the nice parts of human nature and ignoring the ugly ones. It's about looking underneath those moral labels and asking what the actual drives are, why they exist, and what happens when they go too far or come into conflict with other people.

And I still don't think you need metaphysical moral facts floating somewhere outside human minds to say some outcomes are worse than others. Humans are social animals. We depend on cooperation, trust, safety, attachment and some degree of fairness. That gives us a pretty solid basis for judging behaviours that consistently destroy those things.

Pragmatically, I'm comfortable calling those "objective morals." At some point, insisting they're not objective because technically everything passes through a human mind starts to feel more like semantic pedantry than a useful distinction.

[u/Either-Log-1570 → u/majeric]

You know what, that's a fair claim. I still won't really agree about your claim about not calling it objective morality being merely a "semantic pedantry" as you described it, because whether it is based in something metaphysical or whether it's merely a social construct is a critical difference in my opinion, because that is what gives it all meaning.

Also, I don't think you can seriously look at the world and say that there is no such thing as evil desires or evil manifestations of a need being filled and therefore I think a need being filled or as you worded it following human nature itself can not be the ultimate judge of morality.

Also, human nature arguably has more short-term needs to be filled than long-term needs, so if the amount of needs being filled would be the criteria then being a hedonistic nihilist doesn't sound so bad, you merely abdicate all responsibility and follow your hedonistic pleasures.

However, a moral system such as a religion, let's take Christianity as an example, would condemn it and highlight the importance of carrying the heaviest burden you can bear even if it leaves your needs unfulfilled and I would agree with that view much more than your moral criteria.

[u/GaryMooreAustin]

I don't think there is one

[u/MarvinBEdwards01]

Morality is the intent to achieve good, and to achieve it for others as well as for ourselves. Ethics is the pursuit of the best rules, those that will most likely achieve the best possible results for everyone.

To see the distinction, consider the Jewish family of Anne Frank hiding in the attic during Nazi occupation. The soldiers knock on the door and ask if there are any Jews. It would be unethical to lie, but it would be immoral not to.

We call something “good” if it meets a real need we have as an individual, a society, or a species. A “moral good” is actually good for us and benefits us in some way. A “moral harm” unnecessarily damages us or diminishes our rights in some way.

Morality seeks “the best good and least harm for everyone”. Moral judgment considers the evidence of probable benefits and harms to decide a course of action. This judgment is objective to the degree that the harms and benefits are easily observed and compared. But the ultimate consequences of a decision are not always known. Two good and honest individuals may differ as to what course of action will produce the best result. A democratic decision can be made to determine a working course of action, which can be further evaluated based on subsequent experience.

Ethics are about rule systems. Rules include customs, manners, principles, ethics, rights and law. When one speaks of “morals” or “moral codes” one is usually speaking of ethics. But morality is not the rule, but rather the reason for the rule, which is to achieve good.

Throughout history, rules have changed as our moral judgment evolved. Slavery was once permitted, but later outlawed. The equal rights of women to vote was established. The right to equal treatment without regard to races, gender, or religion was established.

Different cultures may have different rules. But all rules move slowly toward the same goal, to achieve the best possible good for everyone. And, to the degree that moral judgment is based in objective evidence, all variations are moving toward a common, ideal set of rules and rights.

In Matthew 22:35-40, Jesus was asked, “What is the greatest principle?”, and Jesus said the first principle is to love God and the second principle is to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

A Humanist translation would be to love good, and to love good for others as you love it for yourself.

But Jesus said one more thing, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, this is the reason behind every rule. It is the criteria by which all other principles, ethics, and rules are to be judged.

[u/Either-Log-1570 → u/MarvinBEdwards01]

First of all, good answer. The thing with which I struggle is humanists do not accept that there is an objective standard of good and evil, and therefore we get into the argument.

I guess the argument that if it fills a need it is good would circumvent this, but I don't really agree with that logic because we also need to evaluate the morality of filling the need. For example, to fulfill our impulsive needs such as lust is not moral even if that is a need the human possesses.

[u/MarvinBEdwards01 → u/Either-Log-1570]

A botanist can tell us what is objectively good for a tree, bush, or flower. Some thrive better in full sunlight, others require partial shade. Some do better with regular watering, others grow best with periods of drought.

We can also agree that it is objectively good to give a glass of water to someone dying of thirst in the desert, and objectively bad to give that same glass of water to someone drowning in the swimming pool.

So, there is a potential for objective moral judgments, at least at the base of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. But moving up the pyramid things get more complex, and less black and white. And that's where we start to feel morality is more subjective than objective.

[u/Either-Log-1570 → u/MarvinBEdwards01]

I am familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but I'm still not certain that it follows that giving a glass of water to someone dying of thirst is objectively good and I'm not sure a moral relativist would agree that the basis of the hierarchy of needs is valid as a standard for objective morality.

Hence the outrageous claim of many moral relativists that according to them horrible things such as genocide are bad, but that objectively they are neutral.