Objective Moralism

For a long time I was silly enough to believe that morals are subjective. Of course, this is not actually the case. We are humans, humans are animals, animals exhibit behaviour and that behaviour is studied by the science of biology. Therefore using the scientific method, to study our own behaviour, we can come up with a set of objective morals... of preferred human behaviour which:
- Assists the group the most out of any set of behaviours ( in the long run ).
- Assists the individual the most out of any set of behaviours ( in the long run ).
- Is applicable to everyone, everywhere at anytime and in any state.

The first thing to recognise when discussing the topic of morality is that morals are rules or guidelines that govern interaction between PEOPLE. And therefore all other entities are irrelevant. We must break the construct of 'society', 'the government', 'a corporation'. None of these entities are human or have free will, they are simply abstractions to label a group of people. So to say 'for the good of society' is to state a fallacy when talking of morals, because society is no one person, and morals only exist between people.

A moral must be applicable to all people. There can be no exclusion phraze. Therefore if you were to say 'taxation is moral' then I would say 'so why is it only moral for people in the government to do, and not moral for me to do?'

If you were to say 'war is moral' then I would say 'if people in the government have the moral right to steal money from other people to pay mercenaries to murder and steal in another country, then why do I not have this right?'

If you were to say 'conscription is justified' then I would say 'if people in the government have the right to enslave anyone over the age of 18 when they feel threatened, then why do I not have that right?'

And so, quickly we see, that the evils of the modern world stem not from moral justification but from immoral justification. The morals on which our society are based are false. And yes, morality is a syllogistic argument. You are either correct in your understanding of morals or you are incorrect. Just as you are either correct in understanding the laws of electromagnetism, or you are incorrect. There is no subjectivity about it.

So... you are probably saying 'well thats an interesting point, but what morals DO exist then?' Well I'm glad you asked!

It just so happens that libertarianism is based on what's called the 'non aggression' principle. That is: you never have the right to initiate force against another human unless they have initiated force against you to begin with (self defense).

Everything else stems from this basic root moral law. Every action between humans must be voluntary. It is never morally correct or morally legal to point a gun at someone and say 'pay taxes', 'do this', 'do that'. No one has that right, because if everyone had that right then society would cease to function, and morals, by their definition, are a preferred set of human behaviour.

The absolute logical argument is put forth in this podcast far better than I could ever hope to explain it:

http://www.freedomainradio.com/Traffic_Jams/proving_morality_32.mp3

I hope this thread has helped you.

 

If you have not been asked to interfere by the victim and it is not obvious that she is in distress, seeking help, then you have no business interfering. Her failure to seek help, or run away, implies voluntary consent.

And I wish you'd get off this fucking '0.001% of people are violent parents' thing. Some tiny percentage of the population is always going to abuse their kids. And you cannot justify implementing fascism to stop them. So shut up about it, you irrational twat.

 

What do you mean 'perhaps'? You either agree or disagree, which is it?

If you heard screams next door you'd be morally obligated to investigate. You might ask the child if she wanted to live with you instead. You still have no right to march in and kidnap people.

Well in the current state of things you pay taxes which fund a war in which millions of people are killed. But I guess we just forget about that because 5 people will be raped by members of their family each year. You bloody idiot. The state is a million times worse than the worst acts an individual can commit.

So do I. But logic fails to work on you. I can give you a logical proof of something, wherein you accept the premises but reject the conclusion. Unless you can find an error in the logic you are forced to either accept the conclusion or you are literally irrational; which you are.

 

See this is where you are fundamentally wrong.

And heres why:
If people within child services have the moral authority to kidnap children, then why is it wrong for anyone else to kidnap children. This is not a preferred human behaviour, and it cannot be consistently applied to the entire human population, and therefore it is not moral.

So to be frank about it. You are syllogistically incorrect. There is no subjectivity here. You have stated your belief, and your belief is a falsehood. You must accept this fact and either change your belief, or further accept that you are a hypocrite.

 

Incorrect. Morality is objective. There exists a formal proof that I invite you to attempt to find fault with:

(this is a paraphrased segment of the podcast posted before)

 

Well you must either accept that definition of morality or accept the conclusion. There is no two ways about it.

The definition, in my opinion, is correct.

To elaborate:
A moral position is one that is right and just. Therefore an immoral position is one that is wrong and unjust. Now, assuming there is no god, right and wrong must have definitions.

When something is right, then that is a preferred behaviour. When something is wrong then that is an un-preferred behaviour. If this distinction did not exist, if humans did not have a preference to be treated 'right', then the words right and wrong would be meaningless. When something is 'right' it is preferred over something that is 'wrong'.

So, for there to be a distinction between right and wrong, there must be preffered behaviour. And because an action that is 'moral' is synonymous to an action that is 'right and just' we must conclude that morality is in fact a set of rules that accurately and consistently identify preferred human behaviours.

 

Have you listened to the podcast. I sincerely hope you are not claiming ignorance as a defense for your own argument! Because that would be a syllogistic fallacy.

If you wish to define morality based on god then you are free to do so. But the logical arguments disproving the existence of god will have a knock on effect to your own arguments, thus making your premise invalid and leaving you with no alternative.

If you accept that morality determines the difference between 'right' and 'wrong', in any society, then you are forced to accept the definition laid forth in the original argument.