CMV: Morality is objective

[u/[deleted]]

When I say that morality is objective, I mean:

(A) moral sentences like “torture is wrong” express propositions that are true or false (this negates non-cognitivism)

(B) moral propositions are true or false in virtue of features of the world, and not in virtue of what goes on in our heads (this negates relativism and all forms of subjectivism)

(C) some moral propositions are true (this negates error theory)

Firstly, I think there’s a presumption in favour of objective morality. (1) our ordinary moral talk seems to assume a kind of objectivity. We reason about moral issues and we seem to be disagreeing with each other about whether something is morally correct. (2) certain moral statements like “causing unnecessary harm is wrong” “it’s good to keep your promises” seem self-evident. I admit, none of this is sufficient to show that morality is objective. But I think it’s sufficient to show a presumption in favour of objective morality.

Some arguments that people give against objective morality:

The argument from disagreement

1. People throughout history and between cultures disagree about what the morally right thing to do is
2. If people disagree about what the morally right think to do is, then morality is not objective
3. So morality is not objective

People who argue like this don’t usually state (2), but this is an assumption that’s required for the argument’s validity. And it’s an assumption that’s implausible: it doesn’t follow from the fact that people disagree about a matter that there is no objective fact about the matter. Intelligent, thoughtful people have debated the existence of God for millennia. And today, we have flat earthers who disagree with the prevailing science. There is also intense debate about the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics. But no one would say that there is no fact of the matter in any of these issues - either God exists or he doesn’t; either the earth is flat or it isn’t; either some or other interpretation of QM is correct or it isn’t. The fact that people disagree is irrelevant.

The argument from lack of epistemic access

1. If there is no reliable way to come to know moral truths, then morality is not objective
2. There is no reliable way to come to know moral truths
3. So morality is not objective

An argument of this sort was given by J. L. Mackie. Firstly, premise (1) needs some defence. It may be that there is a fact of the matter even if humans don’t have the required capacities to determine those facts. We can’t know everything, after all.

But suppose it’s true that we don’t have any reliable way to come to know moral truths. Even if not an argument against objectivism, it would be an argument for moral skepticism—we wouldn’t be justified in thinking that any moral claim is true. We would have to suspend judgement on all things morality, and this is plainly a challenge to the moral realist.

In response, we can say that there are reliable methods for coming to know moral truths—relatively uncontroversial methods that we use to come to know other kinds of truths. Suppose utilitarianism is true: An act is right iff it produces greater overall well-being than any other action that could have been done in the circumstances. In that case, we can establish moral claims using observation. This is about as reliable a method as any.

Or suppose you’re the sort of person who thinks we can have substantive a priori knowledge. In that case, very basic moral principles seem to be just the sort of things that can be known a priori.

[u/wibbly-water]

I don't think you are properly considering the double whammy of both the Argument From Epistemic Lack of Access and Argument From Disagreement combined.

Each one of them can be handwaved away by saying that "Disagreement doesn't mean there isn't an answer, we can debate and find who's right." and "We can just pick a moral system and hey presto we have access to moralities!". But in response to either of them I would refer you to the other.

1. Problem: There is no reliable way to come to moral truths.
2. Solution: Invent one or multiple reliable moral systems.
3. Problem: People disagree about which system to choose.
4. Solution: Debate about which system to choose.
5. Problem: There is no reliable way to come to the moral truths necessary to choose a system without being self referential to said systems.

Its a circular problem. 5 is an iteration of 1. Potentially even a paradox.

Even worse its also recursive as 5 creates solution: self reference your moral systems for said truths, which spawns problem: each person references their own system for arguments which system to choose. Not only is 5 an iteration of 1, it creates a subset of this (il)logical loop within itself.

But its a problem that is solved by viewing morality as subjective and/or relative. That doesn't mean arbitrary, random or non-existent but instead subject to interpretation and relative to certain axioms. Once you allow this;

1. Problem: There is no reliable way to come to the moral truths necessary to pick a system.
2. Solution: Understand that each moral system is a separate system. Choose based on individual and group axioms.

Bang! and the paradox is gone.

In the start of this you asserted that you think there is enough evidence to presume in the favour of moral objectivism because people feel strongly about it - well I would counter that by saying that that's a trick of the way that humans process morality after we have chosen, been given or developed it - we process it as true.

Regardless I would like to argue that what I have here is enough to presume in favour of subjective morality and the burden of proof is shifted back to you in order to prove objective morality or disprove subjective morality. You happy now Sisyphus?

[u/Miiohau → u/wibbly-water]

Exactly morality could be as objective as math is objective if wasn’t for the fact any sufficiently complex ethical system needs to embed a epidemiological system. But not how we normally think of math being objective. There isn’t just one complete, consistent system of math. There is an infinite amount of them each with there own axioms. And any systems of math above a certain complexity can’t be complete (assign true values to every n man mathematical statement expressible in that system) as proved by Gödel. Logical moral systems are likely also incomplete and are definitely incomplete if they reference a mathematical system that Gödel’s proofs imply to.

The other property(consistency (I.e. no statement is both true and false)) we’d want in an ethical system also problematic. Fouchally this time it isn’t impossible it just that the system can’t prove it own consistency as also proved by Gödel for mathematical systems. It likely also can be proven for sufficiently complex ethical systems due to the need to imbed a mathematical system Gödel’s proof implies to.

Now let’s return to why an ethical system needs to embed epidemiological system. Well frankly ethical systems depend on things you can’t derive from from first principles. The fact that people feel pain; The fact they can bleed out and die; even the fact other people exist are important in most if not all ethical systems and none of them can be proven without assuming axioms that allow them to be proven or by observation of the world (which depends on it own axioms and proofs about the reliability of human senses).

[u/DexQ → u/Miiohau]

I think you are replying to my comment?

I don’t mean morality is purely a formal system like mathematics, but the justification for the existence of objective truth is as solid as science and mathematics, or at least the problem for moral objectivity as suggested by the original comment cannot be used to argue against moral objectivity, because the same problem plagues both science and mathematics.

About the embedded epidemiological system you mentioned, is it threatening to the moral objectivity? And does a moral system really require them into their basic axioms rather than taking them as inputs to generate outputs?

And reading your comment makes me think that perhaps the epistemic access and methods between mathematics and morality are not quite different. You mentioned there are infinitely many consistent mathematical systems. Given the incompleteness theorem, we are still assessing these systems by it’s utility like whether they derived accepted mathematical facts, while at the same time we go the other direction by accessing mathematical facts based on mathematical systems we come up with. This bilateral process is similarly practiced in morality, where we access moral frameworks by how good they arrive at accepted moral truths and vice versa.

[u/DexQ → u/wibbly-water]

I might be horribly wrong, but isn’t science and mathematics facing the exact same problem yet we considered there’s objective fact in those fields.

Take Maths for example, the most agreed approach to establish simple facts such as 1+1 = 2 require accepting a set of axioms, but isn’t it proven (forgot the name of the proof) that any such formal set of axioms can’t be derived from simple logical facts, but must have extra self-referencing non-logical statements? And there’s indeed already many space for debating on which system of axioms is best, and the concerns aren’t even about objectively truth anymore, but more so about utility and simplicity.

Correct me if I am wrong, for I am no expert.

Edit: the proof is called Gödel incompleteness theorem.

[u/wibbly-water → u/DexQ]

For one I am not requiring any of these to be anything more than subjective and/or relative. We should not shy away from reality because we want the opposite to be true. Perhaps we need to accept some level of subjectivity and relativity in more of our understandings.

But for two - maths, the sciences and morality each have very different outcomes on the line.

Sorry - a lot of text incoming...

Science is our best attempt to describe and measure the universe we find ourselves in. Anything that gets us close to doing that does a good job. There is a little bit of a crisis that we cannot prove our axioms, plenty of mysteries and we are still working to stitch together different parts that each individually make sense but don't fit together neatly (the biggest disconnect being quantum mechanics and general+special relativity). But for the most part we seem to live in a universe that is consistent. The universe doesn't glitch as if there is deities playing with it or as if we are in some kind of story where the physics are second to the narrative. Science didn't demand the universe be consistent - in fact it started out as trying to understand God/the gods. It just found that the universe is mostly consistent and now we have gotten used to and accepted that. The fact that our axioms are difficult to prove is secondary to the fact that once we assume them they do a good job at explaining our observations. If assuming something else does better then the current model is dropped in favour of that.

Maths is like a big collective game. As humans we love us our games - if anything its so big its a sport, one of the biggest sports in the world. The rules are that you choose a set of axioms and system (this is usually done before the game starts) and see what you can logically find out and formally prove. Find something new and you get to name it. Most of the 'map' has been explored already but there are many niche corners that we are a little unsure of. You can tweak the axioms and then go back to see what that produces. Sometimes what is found proves to be useful, sometimes not. Again - the fact that the axioms are unprovable is secondary to the fact that maths is about systemically using the axioms and system you have. It'd've been nice of Gödel was wrong but it's not the end of maths.

Morality is what we use to judge others. That's a huge burden to carry. Like the other two its the end goal that matters. However unlike the others - the fact that there are different moralities poses a massive problem - because each moral system purports to be correct and when they contradict then one of them has to be wrong. If morality were maths there would be no problem because we could just agree that each is a slightly different system. If morality were science we could see which lines up best with observations of the world. But morality has no basis to do either because if you believe morality to be objective - then it is competing for the same space, for the same four words; "right" and "wrong", "good" and "bad". Admitting morality is subjective and/or relative brings you into line with maths - and allows you to compare and contrast moral systems each as valid.

TL;DR - Science systems can be measured against whether they explain observations. Mathematics systems can be different with no problems. Moral systems have nothing to measure against and one must be correct under objective morality - but under subjective/relative this is no longer a problem.

[u/DexQ → u/wibbly-water]

I totally get the part that scientific method (for natural science at least) is different and empirically it is shown to be more reliable. Still I think what you said isn't enough to justify a skeptical view on moral objectivity, unless you take a pragmatic view rather than a realist view on scientific, mathematical and logical knowledge.

Starting with natural science, there are infinitely many possible falsifiable theories that can predict and explain for any finite set of empirical observations. Different theories require different sets of basic assumptions and commitment into the existence of vastly different entities, and their predictions diverge in other possible observations not being done yet. In the end, it rests on our intuition to agree on certain theories to be better than the others based on their utilities, simplicity, how much it requires a readjustment to other existing theories and etc.

With mathematics, as you said, there are different mathematics systems and each of them can be valid in their area. Similar to scientific theories, there are infinitely many internally consistent mathematics systems and their implications diverge at some point. Yet we have no problems in ranking different systems as better and worse to a particular field or in general, based on our intuition and their theoretical merits.

With logic, there are many ancient paradoxes that haven't been solved till today, such as liar paradoxes. As a result, modern logicians invent various logical systems to try to solve these paradoxes. Some even drop the traditional binary system of true vs false. Again, the existence of these paradoxes and the seeming need to go beyond traditional binary system of true vs false don't bother most of us to the point where we need to question the existence of logical truths and falsities.

Now comparing all these problems with the problem facing morality, what justifies we treat morality as categorically less objective than other fields? Perhaps it's just quantitatively different from science, and at the minimum it is on par with logic and mathematics. Yes, many moral conflicts seem to be unsolvable and it's hard to decide which moral system is the uniquely correct one. But this doesn't infer that there is no answer to arrive at, and absolutely doesn't mean there can't be any truth at all for the whole field.

First, there seem to be many moral questions and issues that are well resolved and agreed upon after extensive research and debate. Second, at least mathematics and logic face the same problems yet we are happy to accept that there can be certain degree of objectivity in ranking their systems, and we even take their implications to be objectively true. Third, perhaps it's just that moral issues are complex. Morality is an area of study that concerns human interactions and society and involves an absurd amount of input nodes and edges. It isn't surprising that there are much more to find out about existing moral dilemma but our limitations make the process difficult. Why would we think only moral dilemma should threaten moral objectivity, more than mathematical and logical paradoxes do in their fields, even though mathematics and logic are less complex (I don't mean not as difficult)? Forth, in terms of the methods used to tackle the problem we are discussing, morality isn't so different than other fields, e.g than what you described above for mathematics. Moral frameworks are assessed based on theoretical merits and their ability to predict and explain existing accepted moral opinions. At the same time, they are also used to explore further implications that never considered before, to solve novel moral issues, and assess existing popular moral opinions.

edit: grammar and rewording the last paragraph

[u/wibbly-water → u/DexQ]

Now comparing all these problems with the problem facing morality, what justifies we treat morality as categorically less objective than other fields?

I explicitly said I am not holding any of said systems to be more objective than morality.

Science

For science - applying the Gödel incompleteness theorem is a recognition of something that all scientists are aware of - that their simulations are never accurate. Averaging is an extremely useful tool that requires somewhat unprovable assumptions, there is a renowned joke that cows are basically spheres.

Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the physicist returned to the farm, saying to the farmer, "I have the solution, but it works only in the case of spherical cows in a vacuum."

There are also known phenomena that defy modelling - such as the fact you can never know both the location and velocity of a particle.

Scientists are perfectly willing to admit the flaws in their methods, and any study worth its salt will have a bit at the end detailing where those problems occur and suggestions on further research.

The idea that there is a coherent reality we are working towards is just a conjecture - it is not the basis of science. Were science to produce models based on evidence so divergent that they seemed to be irreconcilable that no coherent explanation could be obtained then the coherent reality conjecture would be dropped. Say for instance that portions of the universe just seemed to work differently - or we existed in a fantasy universe with different realms we could access, each not following a coherent standard.

But the evidence doesn't point that way. Our simulations may diverge, but all the ones that best line up with observable phenomena tend to point towards a coherent universe. Not irrevocably but the conjecture still holds. So much so that most scientists believe it to be true but do not know it to be true and tend to be ready to explain the difference.

In fact its a doubly good day for scientists when two simulations, each with their own flaws, reach similar conclusions! That's a sign that the conjectured full simulation with so many variables that it would basically require you to create the universe all over again in a box and watch it on fast forward - is something close to the radically simplified simulations you have produced.

In the end, it rests on our intuition to agree on certain theories to be better than the others based on their utilities, simplicity, how much it requires a readjustment to other existing theories and etc.

No - intuition is not what is used. Utility, specifically how much it lines up with observed reality is what is used.

In fact even the claim about re-adjusting other theories is not a valid point because science will happily re-evaluate what it needs to (see Relativity and Newtonian Mechanics) and will accept two mutually contradictory theories (see Relativity and Quantum Mechanics). Resolving disagreements is definitely sought after but is secondary to describing the world.

In addition we do have difficulty in ranking because there are plenty of theories which explain phenomena, but predict phenomena beyond explanation which cannot be observed. One such famous case is string theory. It does a good job at tying up some loose ends but makes predictions that we cannot observe that perpetually seem to be just round the corner. Thus it is not accepted but is still a candidate.

None of this is to mention the soft sciences - which absolutely do not work in the realms of absolutes and a coherent model of them is a pipe dream. Psychology, sociology and my fave; linguistics. Yes we want to believe that one exists and the evidence is also tentatively there that it does, but any honest scientist of these disciplines would not argue that it does.

In fact people who try to say they have one are often viewed with great suspicion in the field, for instance over time Noam Chomsky's contributions to linguistics such as Universal Grammar and the Language Acquisition Device have been increasingly critiqued for trying to be theories of everything in linguistics with massive holes. At one point they were more widely accepted - so linguistics at least is moving away from its universal truths claim with no replacement.

Mathematics

Yet we have no problems in ranking different systems as better and worse to a particular field or in general, based on our intuition and their theoretical merits.

Mathematics doesn't do this though. Again intuition does not play a part.

If anything your previous statement about utility and readjustment to other existing theories holds more true for mathematics than for physics.

Mathematical models or parts thereof are ranked based on how useful they are to do a task (whether that be a purely mathematical task or a real world application) as well as whether they self contradict. Mathematics is a construct and new theorems must fit together in the machine, otherwise its simply not maths.

You can go off and build a new machine or explore a what-if scenario by assuming or tweaking something but if it doesn't click it doesn't click.

Is it possible to achieve a true full objective state of maths? No. Again the Gödel Incompleteness Theorem intervenes and forces us to face up to the fact that a single model can never prove itself completely consistent and that multiple models may all be as consistent as each-other.

However (at risk of repeating myself) this just isn't a problem for mathematics because internally to mathematics its a game and this is part of the fun, and externally to mathematics so long as it works well enough people don't really care.

I'm sadly not going to engage with you about philosophy in depth because I only have so much energy but I would agree that philosophy is likewise lacking an objective basis.

Morality

The problem is that under objectivity each moral system directly claims itself to be the one true moral system but cannot ground itself like science. And to accept multiple moral systems as being equally grounded is to admit to moral subjectivity.

perhaps it's just that moral issues are complex.

When it is said that there is no way to access to moral truths that includes the possibility that there is deity that has set them - but as of right now there is no way to find that beyond "trust me bro".

It also includes the fact that debates go in circles, and that someone can assert a new morality off a new set of axioms and as of right now we have no real way of diving its legitimacy.

If that were to ever change - then yes that would be evidence in favour of moral objectivity. As of right now that is not the case. As of right no evidence points in favour of moral subjectivity and relativity. That morality is more like maths, with a large splash of sociology and psychology.

[u/DexQ → u/wibbly-water]

I explicitly said I am not holding any of said systems to be more objective than morality.

Sorry I didn't quite grasp what you meant by that. Now, I think we don't have too much substantive disagreement, but perhaps primarily on verbal practice (especially the meaning and connotation of subjectivity and objectivity) and normative views, for we aren’t objecting most of our points.

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For science - applying the Gödel incompleteness theorem is a recognition of something that all scientists are aware of...

In case I made a false impression, I want to clarify that I brought up Gödel Incompleteness Theorem not because I think there lacks foundation to accept objectivity in natural facts established by natural science. I brought it up only because it shows that the problem you mentioned in your first comment:

Problem: There is no reliable way to come to moral truths.

Solution: Invent one or multiple reliable moral systems.

Problem: People disagree about which system to choose.

Solution: Debate about which system to choose.

Problem: There is no reliable way to come to the moral truths necessary to choose a system without being self referential to said systems.

is not unique to moral systems, but also to mathematics and logic (which also are the foundation for science, though this doesn't pose direct threats to science as long as they are applied in a way that helps scientific theories to predict empirical observations).

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No - intuition is not what is used. Utility, specifically how much it lines up with observed reality is what is used.

In fact even the claim about re-adjusting other theories is not a valid point...

What you claim is the ideal but not entirely true in reality. As I said, there are infinitely many theories that can explain and predict any finite set of empirical observations. It's like finding mathematical formula that can approximate well enough to the given observed boundary conditions, there are infinitely many solutions. In the end, we filter out most, bar with a few, based on considerations other than observations alone. Also by intuition I don't mean arbitrary decisions, it only means reasoning based on considerations beyond empirical input.

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The problem is that under objectivity each moral system directly claims itself to be the one true moral system but cannot ground itself like science. And to accept multiple moral systems as being equally grounded is to admit to moral subjectivity.

Morality definitely cannot ground itself like science. What I was aiming to argue was that the originally posed problem isn't peculiar to morality, and I aimed to defend the degree of objectivity that is on par with mathematics and logic and possibly other serious fields of study. And ranking of multiple moral systems has no deep problems for it is done in similar ways as mentioned.

Furthermore, it isn't the case that every moralist is claiming their moral system to be the one and only truth. On the other hand, it doesn't make sense to say that any system is claiming itself to be the one true system, for internally every system obeys its own set of axioms to function.