Morality and Subjectivity

The same "are laws moral?" point is being argued in the "rat mothers" thread too... I would argue quite the contrary, Faith. The very decision to "keep social order" is one based in morality, as well as is the manner in which order is kept.Speed limits are neither convenient nor arbitrary - they are specifically based upon what is considered a safe speed for the given road/environment. If they were arbitrary, the speed limit would likely be the same everywhere; that is, 55 mph through a residential neighborhood.Speed limits and other traffic laws are based on a strong moral position: that it is inherently wrong to allow people to drive in a manner that is likely to result in their own death or the deaths of others.(An example that comes to mind: I lived in Nashville for several years, a city that must boast some of the worst drivers in the United States - definitely worse than any other place I've personally been in the world. Horrible. Aggressive. A ridiculous number of accidents, and a daily+ pedestrian death by car within the city limits. However, the wild thing to me was that all of these terrible drivers drove perfectly within school zones, even driving under the already low 15mph school zone speed limit. I couldn't see that it had anything to do with enforcement, since I never saw any police posted at the schools, and I drove past one twice a day. In my mind the wacky Nashvillian culture had made a strong moral distinction - that knowingly putting children at risk was immoral, even though they routinely put the general public at risk with their driving.)

Hey Faith,So it seems we agree on the law issue - I also agree with you that safety isn't the only concern regarding traffic laws, but still maintain, as you seem to agree, that other concerns, such as maintainence of a fuel supply for the community, remain ultimately moral ones. I don't know how much help I can be, and I haven't read the entire thread yet; honestly, the first thing that came to my mind regarding objective/absolute morality was the maxim, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," which I see was mentioned at the get-go in the opening post. However, I don't know that I could truthfully tell you the logical basis or source of this moral code, though I could speculate that it is founded in the evolution of social behavior (I'm guessing you would have different thoughts on that source...).Thinking of the Code of Hammurabi or Ten Commandments (as basic moral codes), I don't see any of them that I can think of at the moment that are absolute.Doesn't seem I can be much help except to throw in my two cents...

Moses, on the other hand, was merely a human leader, with a tribal god, so I don't see how his code could be considered to be absolute.(Sorry, couldn't help myself...)If an absolute God exists, and if God has morals, then those morals would be absolute by definition, I suppose - even if the God's moral code included things like "torture thy neighbor," the morals would be "absolute". I haven't seen evidence for either of those "ifs", but grant that you would be correct if those two conditions were true. Getting all humans to agree upon a moral code would be quite difficult, especially given the multitudes who have psychiatric or other disorders which might make them anti-social.But if I could twist your "all humanity" thought a bit, I'd like to suggest that a moral code that is biologically/behaviorally hard-wired in (healthy) humans may be considered absolute/objective - such as the aversion to murder. Even chimpanzees understand that murder (of other chimpanzees) is (morally?) wrong; though they do occasionally murder solely for political reasons, it has been suggested that it is with disapproval by other members of the community (suggested by researchers potentially guilty of anthropomorphism).I guess I'm suggesting that if it's even part of the chimpanzee moral code, it likely should be part of humanity's as well......a "trans-species" moral code is an absolute one, maybe?

A majority, though, is not sufficient to establish an absolute moral code.Just think of the changes in moral codes that have occurred in the United States - not all that long ago the majority thought that interracial marriage was immoral; now, the majority thinks it is moral (I'm hopefully assuming). Or perhaps slavery - at one time the majority in various cultures found slavery to be moral; now it is essentially internationally considered immoral. These sorts of examples refute the ability of the majority to determine absolute or objective moral codes. Why not? I would think that whether one believes that chimps and humans are the products of Creation, or distant cousins separated by several millions years' evolution, the relatively simple morality of chimps (that is shared with humans) should serve as strong indication of what is absolute morality.That is, if creatures with a far less developed concept of morality also recognize "thou shalt not kill", then we should consider that a pretty good candidate for an absolute moral.

Good point; but to some extent it doesn't matter, since the ability of the majority to establish a universal moral code has been refuted.What are those possibly-universal non-disputed principles? Has anyone suggested any possibilities for discussion-sake? I can't argue with your personal beliefs, I can only state that by making arguments with such a subjective viewpoint you are losing any hope of finding objective answers.There also seems to be an inherent contradiction in your statement regarding the Fall, "our moral sense is compromised since then". If such is the case, then how can you be so sure of your personal views on morality of humans and non-humans? Quite frankly, your "impression" alone doesn't hold any weight in the discussion.And I never said it was an "absolute rule of behavior" by any means. I stated that chimpanzees very likely understand that it is wrong to murder other chimpanzees, though they do commit such acts in extreme power struggles.This is no different a case than humans, who understand that it is wrong to murder other humans, even though they do commit such acts in extreme power struggles.If humans and chimps share the same moral attitude regarding murder, I think we're getting as close as we can to an absolute moral code. Again, I never said the behavior was hard-wired. I said the moral code was hard-wired.That is a huge difference, since both chimps and humans with the same hard-wired moral can still choose behavior that goes against that moral. See the difference?In any case, the point of this discussion is to find a universal moral code, one that is shared by all of humanity, in other words, one that is "hard-wired." A conscience requires understanding that some things are right and some things are wrong, in other words, morality - which you just claimed didn't exist in animals...We just have to be careful when ascribing a guilty conscience to animals that co-habitate with humans, since they may simply be trained to understand human morality, and the accompanying punishment and rewards that come along with that framework.That is why the chimpanzee morality example is so compelling - it was postulated following observation of natural populations.