Subjective Morality - Morality is SUBJECT to the person or the place. Meaning that the basis of morality depends on who you are talking to or where you are at and how they determine their morals.
Objective Morality - Morality is clear and defined and there is only one set of morals that are universal no matter who you are talking to or where you are at.
Now to preface this, I am no scholar or philosopher. I have no college degrees to lean on, not that I believe that is the upmost importance in this situation. I have read plenty of things on the concept of morality and I firmly believe that morality is, without question, objective. If you look closely at the idea of subjective morality and begin to question the foundation of it, it simply falls apart. Now, why am writing about whether or not morals are subjective or objective? I was on Twitter and came across somebody saying this:
Overpopulation was the topic that I came across and this delightful person had this to say about it. Just to make it clear, I think the idea of overpopulation with humans is inconceivable. Nobody can even prove that overpopulation is something that we are even close to needing to worry about, yet my favorite computer software designer, Bill Gates, is constantly saying that he worries about it. Yet still this topic comes up and one thing this guy said that had me at a loss was that to avoid overpopulation we need to lower the birthrate and an ethical way to do that would be planned parenthood and a one child law. Ethical was the term this person decided to use to describe these methods and since I'm generally unsure of exact definitions of words I decided to look this up.
So if ethics are the moral principles that govern a person's behavior, we need to ask ourselves, how would these practices be morally acceptable? So, since the concept of morals has been a BIG thing that I have been concentrating on, clearly I can see these practices being immoral based on my moral foundation. Now, with me being under the impression that morals are objective, how can some have differing morals? Are there multiple foundations of morals or can there only be one? Today’s world would have you believe that there are multiple foundations for morals and it all depends on who you are talking to and where you are and how they define their morals but that leads to some problems. Take murder for example. I know deep down that everyone would admit that murder is immoral. So what would someone who believes in subjective morality say about a culture who think that murder is acceptable? Take the Vikings for example. They essentially thought it was ok to kill someone as long as it was for a good reason, like saying something disrespectful. Clearly I would say they are morally wrong for this but would someone who believes in subjective morality say it is ok because the Vikings say it’s ok? Probably only to stay consistent in their worldview. This can be applied to anything that we would say is immoral, if someone else believes it is morally acceptable, or at the very least amoral, does it make it so. I know some people will still remain hard headed and not accept this frame work but those of us who live in reality can accept that this sort of thinking is a fallacy. We live in a world where, no matter what the clowns say, there is absolute truth. Speaking of truth, this is another problem that occurs with this line of thinking. Can there be multiple truths? We have heard this saying ad nauseam, “My Truth!”, what does that even mean? There is not just a singular truth for you, there is truth and then there are things that people experience that might warp their minds to what reality is and confuses them on what is going on in the world, and sometimes it is not their fault. A lot of people have been brainwashed into thinking this way. Whether that is by design is for another topic but the only way that the world can function properly is if there is a singular truth, not a multiplicity of truths depending on the person.
Now this is what I am talking about. This picture is a great way to set this up. Unfortunately, the person who came up with this is alluding to multiple truths. So whoever did this is a retard. If this was a problem of perspective, they would be right. I get that it is, technically, a matter of perspective but I see a problem with it. The problem is, is that we live in a world where numbers mean something and just because someone thinks a six is a nine doesn’t make it so. If you go into the store to buy something for seven dollars could you hand the clerk six dollars thinking you have nine dollars? I mean you could but you won’t be buying the product. If they wouldn’t have added the second sentence, the picture would work but they are suggesting that a six could possibly be a nine. Then when I go to look who came up with this, I’m not surprised that it doesn’t work. The Education Tree, just a quick look at their website, I can see that they are stained by liberalism. Not going to go much further into that. If you go there, you will see what I mean. For one, they put a man in women’s shoes.
To get back on topic, I prefaced at the beginning of this that I am not a scholar and I have not college degrees to lean on. So let’s see what some who do have those credentials are saying about this subject. If you take a look at this article from Oxford Learning College (not to sure if they are connected with Oxford University), they state that Morals are based on an individual’s own compass of right and wrong. As I have been saying, this can’t be true and it is a fallacy. So if I, just a simple guy with only a high school education, can see this why can’t these college educated people see this? Not to go to far down this road but personally I think our society has placed education on a pedestal to the point were it seems pretty common to relate that education is equivalent to intelligence. If you look at a majority of the people graduating from college these days, intelligence usually isn’t the first thought that comes to mind. That why I love the term “Educated Idiots”. Education just means you were able to follow the instructions and get the work done, not saying that is a bad thing but it is far from determining intelligence. If I take my own personal time to read about various topics and listen to people who have a lot of experience in the topics I am looking into, is that not somewhat in a way the same process that people who attend college are doing? Well if you take the fact that a smelly hippy isn’t trying to convince me to be a Marxist, maybe it’s not the same.
Time for me to wrap up my thoughts on this. If we can determine that morals ARE objective and there can only be one moral foundation, what is the foundation for morals and how can we know this? We have to ask ourselves whether or not someone just came up with this set of morals for the world or if the world already had this set of morals and we just figured it out. The same can be asked about things like mathematics. Did humans just invent mathematics or were the answers to the equations already there and we just figured it out. Take a simple equation, 2+2=4. Can that be anything else? What if I believe that the answer is 6, is there any chance that I could be wrong? What if I can give you a reason I believe this:
If I count all of the points on the two and add them together, I get six. Am I right or would that be the wrong way to solve this problem? Obviously I don’t really think this but I think it is a good way to paint this picture of what people are doing. Sure, they can state why they believe what they believe, but we live in a world of absolute truth and if we stray away from, things can start falling apart. Take a look at our society right now. People are claiming that truth can be whatever they say it is and we are heading down a very dark path. Now with the example above, obviously if we followed this logic it would change everything about math and suddenly every number would now have a new value. How damaging would that be to what we currently know about math? If you take this into consideration, mathematics is a very intricate process and there is clearly a design so I ask again, did humans create math or was it already there and we just discovered it? In my view, it only makes sense that it was already there and with time we began figuring out how it works and the same can be said with morals. This starts getting a bit into metaphysics, which I am nowhere near qualified to start talking about that but things like truth, morals and mathematics are things that are not physical. There is a metaphysical feature to these things so these are not things that can be created by humans. This gives us an understanding that they had to come from something and the only way to explain that is God. The more you begin to understand the moral structure of Christianity, there is no way to ground morals in any other foundation. I have seen people try but it gives way to many fallacies. If someone says they determine their morals based on their brain, how can they say someone else is wrong if that person is using their brain? This is where I see a problem rising, nobody wants to say that anybody is wrong but the truth of the matter is, is that there are people who are right and there are people who are wrong. We have just been bogged down with this idea of not offending people and people are free to believe what they want. Well, they can believe what they want but just because someone believe something, doesn’t make it right because if everyone is right then at the same time everyone is wrong. I don’t want to get into the reason why I believe that the Christian God is the true foundation for truths and morals because if I did I would never be done writing this, so I will just end it on this. At the end of the day you need to take the time to figure out where you ground your truths and your morals, more comes after that but I think that is a good start for people because once you do that, you need to figure out why that is where your truths and morals are grounded because you can’t begin to argue why things are good or bad if you don’t have a solid foundation on what good and bad actually means.
Thanks for reading. Please be sure to let me know what you think.