Do Objective Moral Values Exist?

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Travis Hedglin's picture
Damnit, that means for the

Damnit, that means for the next few months people who read it will be on their high horses trying to proselytize and trample us atheist chattel. Time to circle the wagons and put down their fuzzy-logic and incoherent arguments with extreme prejudice...

Nyarlathotep's picture
It's funny because I had a

It's funny because I had a philosophy professor make a similar statement essentially: "it absolutely morally wrong to torture a baby for your own enjoyment." To which I quickly responded, "how about getting their ears pierced"?

I'm sure Travis already knows the response I got; he just added another conditional "torture them to death for your own enjoyment" (or something like that, I can't remember exactly which one he added). It seems that in the years that have passed the 'absolute objective morality lobby' has managed to add a few more.

Personally, I'm just waiting for a list. They swear until they are blue in the face that it is obvious, they shouldn't have trouble making a reasonably comprehensive list.

Michał Kraus's picture
I just wonder. If torturing,

I just wonder. If torturing, raping, and killing small babies is objectively bad, why the biblical (or quranic) god never said: don;t kill babies and instead he ordered (just two examples but there are more):

But now Israel will bring out her children to be slaughtered." O LORD, what should I request for your people? I will ask for wombs that don't give birth and breasts that give no milk. The LORD says, "All their wickedness began at Gilgal; there I began to hate them. I will drive them from my land because of their evil actions. I will love them no more because all their leaders are rebels. The people of Israel are stricken. Their roots are dried up; they will bear no more fruit. And if they give birth, I will slaughter their beloved children." (Hosea 9:11-16 NLT)

"Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children. (Isaiah 13:15-18 NLT)"

Why the biblical god gives specific instructions how to treat slaves? Why the hell didn't he say that slavery or killing babies is bad or at least put it somewhere within ten commandments - aren't those worth to be mentioned there?

If there is objective morality what would be the source of this morality? - as far as we know (example above) religions and gods are the worst source possible.

ThePragmatic's picture
Sorry for not answering, I

@Otangelo Grasso

Sorry for the delayed answer, I seemed to have missed this one.

"is in your view torturing, raping, and killing small babies for fun bad in any circumstances ?"

Yes. Within the context of normal flourishing human life, my personal opinion is that it is absolutely immoral. That is the main reason I have often condemned Psalm 137 and other baby killings that Yahweh seems to indulge himself in.

Stu. K.'s picture
I would think a serial killer

I would think a serial killer or two would think differently about that. And actually as a matter of fact, there was one serial killer ****ALTHOUGH THIS MAY OF BEEN A MOVIE I SAW, OR IF I REMEMBER AT ALL (A.K.A. I COULD BE WRONG)****, one said he actually enjoyed doing it.

Edit: This was meant as a response to the post literally right above me. Whoopdedoo.

cmallen's picture
Wasn't that serial killer's

Wasn't that serial killer's name 'god almighty' or 'the lord thy god' or some such? If I recall, burnt baby flesh produced an aroma pleasing to him; though I think one had to dash them against the rocks first for tenderizing or something. Disturbing movie or book or whatever it was at any rate.

SeanBreen's picture
Morals, fundamentally, are

Morals, fundamentally, are social conventions on certain distinctions between right and wrong behaviours. Social conventions are not universal, nor are they objective in the sense that they can be quantified, qualified and applied to or contrasted with intrinsic material truths or physical laws. Maths is objective because it is a working framework which functions when applied to the material world. Morals are subjective because they are consensuses of opinions on particular actions which vary between cultures.

There are of course, almost universal consensuses on some moral arguments such as "is it right to murder?" But these in no way provide us with a basis on which to assert that some cosmically correct moral conclusion on murder exists. The reason we have consensuses is much more simple: murder is an enemy to our social security. None of us want to be killed against our will (I say against our will because it is absolutely possible for someone to consent to being killed, yet for the law to regard this killing as an unlawful murder). All of us desire to live lives free from any somesuch violation of our will, and since we are social creatures, it makes sense for us to propagate notions which allow all of us to live as such. To be against murder and to be unwilling to commit murder is to recognize, through empathy, the symbiotic nature of human society. Interpersonal solidarity, I call it.

The answer to the original question is resoundingly, emphatically, "no", but the question itself is misleading, because something can in fact be considered (wrongly) objective if there is a universal consensus upon it. Take the murder of a healthy infant. I know of no contemporary human society (and if there are any, please point them out) who consider the murder of a healthy infant an acceptable practice. Therefore, a person might say "well, murdering an infant is objectively wrong". That's incorrect. It's universally wrong, but that could well change. I know that Spartan societies, even if a newborn was healthy, would bathe them in wine. Some children, who were otherwise healthy, might take an allergic reaction to the wine and thus be considered insufficiently strong, then the child would be killed. Is that wrong? Well, it wasn't wrong to the Spartans.

Vincent Paul Tran1's picture
china

china

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