Is morality subjective or objective?

Poll

Is morality subjective or objective

Just wondering on other peoples opinion about morality as our school has touched on it a bit. personally im a bit undecided but leaning towards objective morality since we have come along way in thousands of years and we ultimately seem to be approaching a very similar goal on morality, and the gap between peoples opinions on morality seems to be closing

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Reply 1

Bio 7

Subjective. There will always be a reason behind doing something, advantages and disadvantages no matter what. Slavery is a terrible act but does help with cheap labour and getting stuff done. Even if we all came to a consensus on somethings, say killing is wrong, that is still only down to our subjective senses and thoughts.

Something must always be true for it to be objective. How many people have been bitten by mosquitos in the last hour? That has an objective answer even if we don't knkw the answer itself. The number of people bitten in the last hour isn't debatable because of our senses and opinions, it just is and won't change.

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 2

Gent2324

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by Bio 7

Slavery is a terrible act but does help with cheap labour and getting stuff done.

i understand that it was effective for labour etc, but i dont see how that relates to its morality. the morality of an action shouldnt be dependant on its effectiveness for the people that arent suffering for it. not many people believe in slavery now because i think as western society we've established the morality of enslaving people, slavery today would still be effectiive for business but no one argues from that standpoint anymore

Reply 3

BFG9000

It's a combination of both...

Reply 4

Bio 7

Original post by Gent2324

Some people could still make the argument that it benefits them and they should be allowed to have slaves. Having a slave would be useful, it would help us so much in life but the act of keeping one infringes upon them too much thus why we don't practice it now. That doesn't mean there aren't people that think we should have them, they will just have to keep quiet.

It is perfectly relatable to morality because we have to decide if it is morally right or wrong, and there are people who think it is right because slaves are less than human, or they are so jseful that it is better to use them and not care about them. This is a subjective area like all moral questions, so morality can't be objective.

Why did you focus on one line rather than my whole point? That part wasn't relevant enough to the full discussion.

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 5

Gent2324

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by BFG9000

It's a combination of both...

defintion of subjective: "based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions."
defiiniton of objective: "not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts"

both defintions compltely contradict eachother so how could you have a combination of both?

Reply 6

Tolgash

I'm not sure myself to be honest. However, if morality was objective, I don't see why standards of morality would change, or even exist. For example, the abolishment of capital punishment in some countries.

Reply 7

BFG9000

There is an objective morality framework shared between all mammals (try not to kill your own...) that work as a foundation on which different group of people build local subjective subsets of rules/morals.

Reply 8

Notoriety

Original post by Gent2324

Subjectively choose a moral system which behaviour can be objectively tested against.

Reply 9

ANM775

subjective

a few hundred years ago is was ok to own a slave, ...now a person doing so would be deemed an immoral person
a while back gay sex acts were deemed immoral as well .................not anymore

morality is a social constuct and with time chopes and changes like the wind

there are things that you and everybody else posting here will have opinions on today that people in 200 years will view as immoral and wrong

Reply 10

Retired_Messiah

Original post by Bio 7

You've not actually argued against objective morality, really. People will always disagree on morality and will have differing justifications for particular acts, but the always true facts about morality appearing unknowable doesn't mean that they're not there.

Reply 11

Bio 7

Original post by Retired_Messiah

You haven't made a point for objective morality though. From everything we know we don't much reason to assume morality can be objective, there is no basis for it.

The number of people bitten by mosquitos in an hour kbviously has an objective answer, but morality doesn't have any clearly defined way of being objective, it is only down to subjective senses which cannot really decide if something is objectively right or wrong.

Reply 12

bigger niche

Objectively, I would say it is subjective.

But if I considered the topic subjectively, I would be inclined to think it is objective.

Reply 13

Gent2324

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by Bio 7

maybe we have different views on what objective or subjective morality is, but my point is that as a human race, we once thought that owning a slave was completely immoral because black people arent proper people, but since those times, facts have shown us that obviously they are people just like us. so indepedently of whether someone thinks we should have a slave or not, the facts show that black people are as human as everyone else so its immoral to have a black slave. while the individual could believe its moral to have a slave, as a human standpoint its immoral, and over the hundreds of years we've come to see different facts changing peoples opinions on things regardless of personal experiences.

as for your other post about the mosquito, a fact can show that killing someone for money for example is immoral, regardless of your opinion, theres no justifiable evidence to say that in this instance killing someone for money is moral. They are innocent, they have a family, facts can show that killing someone for no reason who has a family is injustifiable. as with slavery, it doesnt have a subjective answer because as facts arise, peoples opinions change on whether we should have slaves. people didnt think slaves had feelings, now we know they do. if facts was nothing to do with it we would be in a similar state than we were 300 years ago. we've learnt certain facts about certain problems which change how we live.

Original post by ANM775

thats because as a human race we are progressing towards an ojective morality, we might thank that the stuff we do know is moral, in 100 millions maybe we will finally reach an era where what we do is moral.
its all based on facts, people were against gay sex because of religious reasons, nowadays there are no facts supporting that claim so not many people hate it anymore. the difference between those times and now is that we learn facts, our opinions havent just changed for no reason.

Reply 14

Obolinda

Volunteer Team

Morality is knowing that the difference between good and bad and that you ought to good. There is no way to logically obtain an objective "ought". Why ought you not hurt people? Hurt destroys wellbeing. Why is wellbeing good? It just is...

Reply 15

amy.mitchell

Original post by Gent2324

I don't study philosphy so this is purely personal insight. I think it's a combination. One core morality is subjective but due to society and our social nature it becomes almost objective, with a certain moral standard being widely accepted to be correct.

Reply 16

Bio 7

Original post by Gent2324

Those facts don’t make something objectively right or wrong, they just add value to an argument for or against. If someone poor kills someone for their money and uses it to get them out of debt and they stay that way, that could be used as an argument in favour of the murder. While still wrong, they can justify their actions in that their life has been improved substantially from that act and that their feelings and life are worth as much as theirs, but they went with it anyway. It gets more complicated when you add in killing people that have also murdered people, or tortured them etc and wether they should have been killed, thus why some places still have the death penalty and some people want it brought to other places. It will always depend on someone’s viewpoint if they can justify their actions to themselves, even if other people disagree. A fact is objective, but a few facts doesn’t make something objective.

I just don’t think it can be possible to use our subjective senses to decide what is objectively moral, because we judge it based on our subjective senses. They tell us that feelings matter, but do they? None of this can really be objective, but a definitive number of people bitten is, because our senses are not involved.

Reply 17

Bio 7

Original post by amy.mitchell

So not a combination at all, because you even said it was almost objective.

Reply 18

04MR17

Volunteer Section Leader

Subjective.
Moral rules can be broken and created by ourselves incredibly easily. Even if a society has an assumed set of morals, one individual always has power to change that. Subjectivity is fundamentally about the power of the individual to make decisions. Though external forces have an impact on an jndividuals morals (be it a conscious influence or not), the individual always has the power over their own morality. Hence subjective.

Reply 19

tazarooni89

Morality is definitely subjective.

Here is a rough, simple test to determine if it is subjective or objective: If the universe were completely devoid of sentient beings and was nothing other than lots of particles interacting with each other, would the concept of morality still exist? If so, then morality is objective. Otherwise, it is subjective.