Way of the Mind Forum

What is morality? Why is it objective?

Morality is a manmade system tailored to reach a specific end, just like mathematics. That specific end is happiness. You can hold different definitions of morality, but if you change the definition of any words you will change what they mean entirely. Math is an objective system. But it is true that is you changed the definition of math to "a system that will not let us gain any greater understanding of the universe" then it will work differently. But that is no longer mathematics. By the same logic, you cannot change the definition of morality then claim morality is subjective due to these alternate definitions.

Morality, like math, has a right answer or answers for the given situations. Sometimes we may not be able to find the right answer, we may lack the data to be sure that our current answer is correct, and we are never able to fully prove we are right. But the right answer still exists.

How can you believe in objective morality without God?

As a mere system, morality is no more difficult to accept for an atheist than mathematics. We create objective systems all the time. This in no way requires a deity of any type.

Why is morality concerned with happiness?

To obtain happiness (in the short or long term) is each and every one of our ultimate goals which we base every action we make on. We go to school to get a job to get money to make us happy. We help our friends because we are happy when they are happy. We donate to charity because we feel better when helping others (or because we want to look generous, which also makes us happy). Sometimes we eat a lot of junk food to make us happy in the short term, at the cost of losing happiness later on. Other times we defer our pleasure, and save up our money to achieve happiness later on. But whether it is short or long term, happiness is the ultimate end of all our actions.

So, since happiness is our ultimate goal then it is truly the thing most important to us. Morality is concerned with right and wrong. And what could be more wrong than taking what is most dear to someone? And what more right than taking or defending it?

We only want to please ourselves? Is this not a selfish worldview?

No! This simply describes why we do the good and evil things we do. It is not exactly selfish to share in the pleasure of another. This can be interpreted as a negative worldview, but it is merely used as an explanation. We all wish to be happy, and traits like love, caring, and friendship are ways in which we can give and receive happiness from others.

What of evil people? Is it not immoral to punish them, as by doing so we reduce their happiness?

People who are evil act outside the system of morality. They ignore it, and they are morally wrong. So if an action requires us to take away their happiness for the happiness of another, it should be done. One cannot ignore the requirements of reality and expect others to still give them the same benefits as they would to those who adhere to morality. This is why jails and the like are moral. We make the immoral suffer, but it is so the moral can live with a greater degree of happiness. We protect the happiness of those who will not steal the happiness of others. We protect the good, but must harm the evil to do so.

What of rights?

Rights are a concept vital to morality. Again, they are manmade and in no way divine, but still important. It would seem that sometimes we reduce overall happiness to protect somebody's rights. But it would also seem that we do not think it moral to, say, murder one healthy person in the waiting room of a hospital to save the lives of 2 who need his organs. It may seem like we are increasing the amount of happiness, but this action appears to be immoral (instinctually, at least).

It was actually this example which made me doubt this moral system for quite some time. But then I realized that killing this one person does not actually increase the happiness of our system as a whole. By allowing this death, we cause the people of our society to live in constant fear that they may be randomly killed for such a cause. It would greatly demerit the life and safety of the individuals in our society, so it would decrease net happiness.

This means to kill this person is immoral under this system, as we would intuitively believe.

Note: if it were a situation where killing the one person would save a million, then it would cause less happiness for the system to not kill them. For then we would be in a system where people feared (and simply caused) mass death because we value one person too much. I cannot give the exact value of how many people are allowed to die (morality is a system just too complex for me to work that accurately with) but we can know not to kill to save one, and to kill to save a billion.

What of selfishness?

Another rule in the system is that happiness you give yourself is not included in the net calculation. If you hurt others to become happy yourself, you are still immoral, because the only happiness you increased was your own. There are times where you can make yourself extremely happy, and harm someone else very little, that may seem okay to do. For example, if you could somehow steal one dollar to become a millionaire. But, while doing this harm is understandable and not vastly immoral (because you do so little of it), it is still somewhat immoral overall.

What of suicide? Does this not take away the happiness of the individual? Yet people still do it. Does this not contradict your theory of all action being aimed at happiness?

No, there is no contradiction. The person in question is merely looking to lose their short term suffering (an overall increase in happiness) through death. They ignore the possibility of long term happiness for short term happiness.

However, since you are likely hurting those close to you for your own happiness, suicide is usually not moral.

But how to you account for situations which appear to have multiple morally correct answers?

Multiple things could result in this. First, we could simply have made an error. Morality is a system even more complex than mathematics, and math is difficult in itself. Mistakes will happen. Secondly, as in math, sometimes multiple answers are both right. For example, the equation:

(x-2)(x+1)=0

allows for x to be equal to 2 or -1. Both are absolutely and objectively correct. Just because there are multiple correct answers doesn't mean that one is wrong and the other is right.

How about a situation with no correct answer?

This happens in math as well. For instance:

x^2 + 1= 0

No real number can satisfy this equation. Just because we have a system in place does not mean that we must be able to create a right answer for every situation the system encounters.

Note: I am aware that the answer to this equation is the imaginary number i. This was just a quick example to show how no right answer can exist without making the system flawed (as we created imaginary numbers to help the mathematic system work, but they don't actually represent a practical object). Another example of an undefined function is 0/0, if that works better for you.

Second note: I do also realize that 0/0 may indeed have a value, and we simply haven't found it yet. This may be true, and can work for situations in morality as well where we do not see a possibly right answer currently, but later tweak or expand the system to uncover it.

How can you simply throw out other peoples definitions for morality?

Other definitions for morality other then the commonly accepted one of dealing with right and wrong is simply redefining the terms. We can argue over different systems, just like we could in math and programming languages, but we cannot actually say that math is a type of tropical fish, or a system concerned with the structure of the English language. The same holds for morality. When someone postulates a different meaning for the word, they should simply make up a new word. They usually don't want to say "I don't believe in morality" though, so they make up a new definition for morality that they do believe in so they don't seem like immoral people.

Isn't it arrogant to say you know morality in an objective sense? Is that not kind of judgemental, like you pretend to be God?

I am treating morality no different than science. If anyone provides examples and such that seem to contradict my theory, I will have it modified or thrown out entirely as the situation calls for it. I even currently would not doubt that it could use some fine tuning. I mean, a year ago I saw morality as completely subjective and was quite humbled when I saw how nonsensical that was. So, I admit I could be wrong, but I will stand by this until chosen otherwise. Also, people should be judged by their actions. It is not judgemental to see evil and call it such. If your judgements are well supported, it is good to be "judgemental".

Why is evil inherently wrong? Why can't I be a jerk?

Evil is immoral by definition. However, morality is merely a man made system like math. You do not need to personally adhere to it. You are a morally bad person if you ignore morality, and must face the consequences of this. If in math, you ignore the system, you fail the class. In morality, you go to jail or are generally disliked and distrusted. There is no objective reason saying you should be moral, only an objective way to be moral if you choose to do so.

Doesn't your theory on what drives humanity conflict with your moral theory? If human nature is selfish and concerned with one's own happiness, and morality is selfless, then why do we find any individuals who act morally?

One would only ever choose to be moral in my system if they truly gained happiness through morality. This could be because it just makes them feel better about themselves, because they hope to avoid punishment (jail or hell for Christians for example), or because they see it benefiting them is some other way.

Do you differentiate between the morality of an action and the person who performs it?

Of course. An action can be evil, while the actor does not become more evil due to it. Inversely, a person may do a good action with ill intent. For example, if I meant to help someone in math, but made a mistake and taught them the wrong formula, my action itself would be immoral because it reduced our net happiness, but I would not be less moral for it because I did not intend to do so. The opposite is true if I intended to give the wrong formula, but happened to give the correct one by accident. The action is moral, as it does increase happiness, but I am still more immoral for doing it.

In short, the morality of an action depends on the net change in happiness it causes. The morality of an agent is based on the net change in happiness they believe they will cause with the action. This portion of my moral system is borrowed from Immanuel Kant in his 'Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals'.




So, what do you think? Do you disagree with morality being a manmade system? Do you believe it to be subjective? Is it not concerned with happiness? I'd love to know.

Of course morality is subjective, morality is simply adhering to the rules of right conduct and those rules are subject to culture, beliefs, situation.
Morality is not objective, it is not something that actually exists, it is like emotions, subjective and non-existent.

If a culture dictated that it is okay to kill all people of black skin colour, would that not be wrong? I think a beliefs, including cultural beliefs, can be evil.

Morality obviously depends on the situation, but that doesn't mean there are no objectively moral answers for a given situation.

Your speaking from a viewpoint that says killing people is wrong always, hence your interpretation of your racist murder example is subjective. There is no common denominator in morality, it simply does not exist.

I believe suffering, or taking happiness, must always be wrong. It is taking away what is most important to anyone. How can that be anything but wrong?

Foolish, you assume we matter, you assume FAR too much of our own importance, what is important? Importance is a subjective quantity, what is belief? A subjective quantity, what is emotion HA! what is happiness? A subjective quantity.

Everything you base morality around is subjective, in REALITY emotions do not exist except as chemical reactions within our brains, happiness? Happiness is whether or not your brain produces some natural drugs to make you feel good. What is WRONG? Define WRONG, without an appeal to a subjective quantity

Yes there is beneficial and harmful, but whether these are good or bad is subjective, made up.

We live in a universe of objects in space, we are defensive shells for our on DNA, nothing more.

I maintain that we made the system of morality. It is a concept, a word, that we CREATED. Just like mathematics is a system we created. What you are doing is akin to saying "2+2=4? You assue oo much of our own importance! Prove 2 + 2 equals four!".

I have two pencils here, I add another two pencils, the amount of pencils I now have is known as four pencils. Therefore I have 4 pencils.
That would be the same if humanity ceased to exist, it can be applied to planets, suns, black holes, quarks, molecules atoms, people, anything.

Yes. And if I took away someone's happiness that would be what is called bad. THat is the same whether humanity never existed- the action would still be morally evil.

No, because without humanity to encourage this standard there would be no such thing. Pencils exist, rocks exists, morality does not, it is a system, just like laws do not exists, but they are enforced.

Imagine if humans, and all other semi-sentient creatures popped out of existence, if this was to happen then there would be no morality, because morality is subjective.

Tell me, what is the absolute moral value for a lion killing a gazelle?
There isn't one, it is equally beneficial and detrimental to either parties and is therefore it is both good and bad.

What you are not grasping is the fact that humanities social niceties do not apply throughout the entire universe, and especially not into reality itself.
My point is this, we define good or bad as terms that we created, bad is not like four, four is a name given to something that could exist without humanity, or sentience, bad on the other hand, can only exist if someone defines it, if someone says "this is bad".

You can easily argue that 'yes but four is defined by us' but the thing we call four, just like the thing we call hydrogen, can and would exist with our without sentient life to define it.

In a nutshell: Morality does not exist because it relies on definition to be what it is now (a concept), things that exist can exist without definition.

Morality does not need to be enforced to exist. Just because no-one prevents an action doesn't mean it is no longer evil.

No, morality would still exist. However, creatures that are not moral agents cannot be called moral or immoral. A value may be placed on their actions, but cannot reflect on the individual because they lack the ability to distinguish right from wrong. However, as with the pencil example, even if two pencils don't exist, one pencil plus one pencil still objectively equals two pencils.

The value of killing the gazelle is immoral. It is causing suffering and only benifiting the actor (unless the lion shared the food with family or something). However, the lion would not become immoral because he is not a moral agent. The lack of materials for a system to work with is in no way linked to how objective or subjective a system is though.

We define four as a term we created. Bad is something that would exist without humanity, as is four. We merely labelled these things. Someone does not need to say “This is bad” for it to be bad. It maintains it’s “badness” whether or not sentience exists. However, whether the action can make the actor more or less moral depends if the actor is a moral agent of course. But, even in a world without moral agents, the actions would still hold the same moral values.

I stress again- just because morality largely is used by moral agents doesn’t mean it ceases to exist without them. Math is only used by sentient creatures, but exists beyond sentience.

Yes. So does the “thing” we call evil. Evil however is just not a physical thing, but a property of an action. For instance, a ball can still be blue- even if there exists no eyes to see it. An action can still be evil, even if no moral agents exist to judge it.

Four relies on the definition as much as morality does.

Four does not rely on definition at all, we can have 'four', 'quattro', 'quatre' without need for definition, just like we can have a rock without need for definition. Four is, perhaps a bad example, as it could be considered middle ground for this argument.

Moral agents? If a lion is not a moral agent then neither is a gazelle, therefore morality cannot apply to it because the gazelle is not a moral agent, not something that is subject to reality, and this is exactly the point, everything in reality is subject to everything else, if we have something that only affects certain entities then it is subjective and does not exist within a objective universe, which is what we live in. What if, for instance, this situation was reversed, what happens if suffering is considered a good thing? Suddenly morality changes, but how? Is it not a constant?

Try and apply a moral situation to a place with no life, you can't, one rock cannot be good or bad to another rock, it takes a judge to decide whether a rock hitting another rock is good or bad. But oh yes, I forgot, rocks aren't 'moral agents' a mythical status used to prove your own argument, unless you can define moral agents as entities that react to the chemical reactions known as morality, and unless you define morality AS those chemical reactions, which you are not, since if that was your definition the removal of life would cease morality, then you cannot say morality exists within the universe.

Attempt to refute this: I am alone in the universe, the only 'moral agent', I harm myself once. Is this good or bad?

I maintain morality also exists without need for a definition. “Good” and “Bad” are merely labels, such as “two” and “four” are labels. They describe the reality, but do not create it.

I am not sure where you are getting this “subjective to reality” idea. Not all of creation has a moral standard. Moral agents are those with a “container” for morality. To say morality is subjective because a moral value cannot be placed into an entity which is not a moral agent is the same as saying my staple is not part of reality because it doesn’t have a container to upload a 700 megabyte AVI video file onto. The actions of the lion are still somewhat immoral (again, assuming the lion is the only one to benefit from this death), just as the AVI file may be the movie The Matrix. Both these things would be objective truths, even if the lion/gazelle and the stapler could not have this truth reflect upon them.

What if, for instance, the situation was altered, what happens if the number four is represented by the symbol 5? Mathematics changes, but how? Is it not constant?

Fooling around with definitions will naturally change how we speak of the system. It doesn’t mean the system is subjective though.

The rocks cannot feel happiness or suffer, so morality does not describe anything in this system. It still exists, and is still objective, it just doesn’t apply to the system.

For instance, the statement “2 pencils plus two pencils equals four pencils” still holds true, even if all pencils were to cease to exist in the universe. However, the statement would not longer describe the current possibilities in the universe- it would just say “If two groups of two pencils each did exist, adding these two groups together would result in a single group of four pencils”.

Morality is the same. Even if no moral agents did exist, the moral statement “If one moral agent caused another being capable of suffering to suffer, and did not generate any happiness to any individual other then the acting agent, then the action would be evil, making the actor less moral” would still be objectively true.

A moral agent is a being able to feel happiness and suffering, as well as being able to understand how their actions affect the happiness and suffering of others who can feel it. As said above, removing moral agents would cause morality to no longer be involved with the universe. The objective truths would still hold though.

It is an action of neutral morality. As I said in my first post, happiness and suffering one inflicts onto himself does not get included into the equation to calculate net morality. You action would simply be objectively of no moral value either way.

Ah, so it is subjective, subjective to the whether the entity can suffer or feel happiness, morality, by your own definition is subjective, because it only applies to certain entities.


Without something to define that as 'true' then the statement is incorrect, and again, your assuming your system is the only one that works within the universe. Also, how is it objectively true? If it was objective it would exist as an integral part of the universe, but it is not, it is simply a thing made up to make your perception of the universe, and mine, easier to digest, another way of categorizing things.

That is like saying math is subjective because you can't say "triangle times fish is equal to something". Morality is objective, and some things are objectively outside the system of morality. Objective does not mean all inclusive or universal, just absolute.

My system is the only system I can imagine working in the universe. I am not just going to assume another system works- I'd need some evidence of it. That is like saying I assume the sun-centred view of our solar system is the only one that works. It is the one with the most evidence, so I believe in it. If a new theory with just as much evidenve came about I'd consider it too. But I am not going to always second guess myself because I might be wrong.

Also, concepts in general go not exist within the universe, they exist to describe it. They are non material, and theoretical. Math does not exist "in" the universe any less or more than morality does. It just describes in an absolute way properties of that which can fall into its domain.

Objective MEANS things that exist within the universe, for instance, emotion, as a concept. is subjective, and therefore does not exist anymore than laws exist. The chemicals that make UP emotions DO exist and are objective, they exist within the universe, take a pen, a pen exists, but it's purpose does not, nor does it's name, nor does any moral or emotional implications you care to apply to it

Because you are viewing the universe through your human 'glasses': Names, tags, categories, good, bad, tasty, disgusting. All illusions, all there to allow us to understand the universe, the only way to separate yourself is to see the universe in terms of objects in space, not feelings and emotions. Hard to do, impossible for some and impossible to keep up for anymore than an hour or so but VITAL for scientific research.

And here we finalize the argument, you are correct, morality does not exists, it is a way of categorizing the world, you may be right in that morality can have constants in any system, though I would disagree and would have evidence to back it up, however, like the CONCEPTS of emotion do not exist, nor does morality.

EDIT: To be perfectly honest I think I lost, but I still hold that morality does not exist within the universe anymore than laws.
You held a respectable and well worded argument. Thank you esaul7

Sorry for the late reply. I do believe that morality exists within our physical universe as much as mathematical laws, and these are both objective.

I won't continue to argue though, since you seem to admit there is truth to most of what I am saying. I would also like to thank you for your friendly debate, and for being able to say "I believe I lost". Too many people seem afraid to do that.


Out of curiousity, what do you think of my actual system, assuming morality was objective?