Morality and Subjectivity

What are you asking in this thread again? I think there are two streams of thought going on, and they are getting confused together. People are showing you that there are logical grounds for morals. However, yes, these morals are still subjective.Being logical does not equate to being objective.If we value self-preservation, then "Thou shall not murder" is a moral value we should uphold...this is perfectly logical (if x, then y). It just also happens to be subjective. Sort of. Murder is really morally wrong, because we live in a subjective culture that values self-preservation. But you are correct that it is not objectively wrong. I think most everyone in this thread thinks this is true. I certainly agree with this statement. Just looking at different cultures around the world makes this almost trivially obvious.

Yes, it is. No, I do not think you can generalize this. It may be subjective, and not logical. Or it may be subjective and logical. It certainly is subjective, but it's also certainly possible to have a logical reason for it being so.Why do you think something cannot be subjective, yet still have a logical reason to be that way?I'll expand on the previous example I already stole from earlier in this thread.

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If we value self-preservation, then "Thou shall not murder" is a moral value we should uphold.

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Premise A: I value self-preservation.
Premise B: There are people who murder.
Premise C: There are people who do not murder.
Premise D: Some of the people who do not murder will also value self-presevation.
Premise E: It is harder to murder someone in a group of people than it is to murder a solitary person.Premise A + Premise E: My chances of surviving being murdered increase if I am in a group of people who want to stay together.Premise D + Premise E: 'Not being murdered' will be an attractive idea to others who value self-preservation.Conclusion (Premise A + Premise D + Premise E): If I morally accept that I will not murder others, this will attract other non-murderous people and therefore increase my chances of surviving being murdered.Hence:

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If we value self-preservation, then "Thou shall not murder" is a moral value we should uphold.

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I find this logical. I also find this subjective. Subjective because if someone does not accept my premises, then they will not come to the same conclusion.
I assume you also see this as subjective.
Why do you not find it logical? The grounds we have are those subjective feelings. The good thing is that the grounds agaist us are only equally subjective feelings.Our weapon is that logical analysis of the pros and cons of the results of certain actions can increase our knowledge. An increase of knowledge has the ability to change our feelings. Therefore it is possible to persuade others into thinking certain subjective morals are better than others. I think you mean "right" in an objective sense here. And, as I've stated, I think morals are subjective. Therefore, niether of the sides will be "right" in the objective sense. But one thing will (sorry, 'has') been done. Someone has used their subjective feelings and logical analysis to persuade others into putting them into a place of power which could enable these actions. The same person has used their logial analysis to persuade enough people that the action is morally right enough to perform the action.But I do not need a popular topic. The same thing goes for blatant murder. I do not think that it is objectively "wrong" to murder. I think it is good for me, my family, my country.. everyone.. to not murder. And I have logical reasons for thinking that way. I can use these logical reasons to show others, and to persuade them.

Ah, then yes. Given this definition, anything that is subjective.. has no logical ground since that is your definition.My definition of subjective (from dictionary.com):-Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision.
-Particular to a given person; personal: subjective experience.
-Moodily introspective.
-Existing only in the mind; illusory.
-Psychology. Existing only within the experiencer's mind...any of the first 3 definitions are what I am referring to.

Yes that is the crucial premise.No it is not "another groundless moral rule".It is not a rule at all. It is a premise. You can accept it, or not. That's why it's subjective. Some of us will feel that self-preservation is important. Others will not. People are different.All the other premises are objective (or at the least, circumstantial). This single one, Premise A: I value self-preservation, is a subjective value. It depends on how you feel, how you think your life should be led. No. It is not mandatory, and it isn't even a moral. It is a value, an aspect, a.. variable. You can either feel self-preservation is important to you, or you can feel that it is not important. No, that does not logically follow.If murder is immoral, and its reason is that murder puts self-presevation at risk, it does not follow that the attempt at self-preservation is also morally mandatory. It follows that the attempt at self-preservation is something one has to decide is important to oneself. Since it is at risk, it must be judged whether one cares or not.. a risk analysis. Just because something is at risk does not make it morally mandatory. Otherwise my grass would be morally madatory whenever the snowplow comes by and scrapes up half my yard.

Almost, my point is that murder and colour choice are equally subjective. Really.. there is no variation in subjectivity, either something is subjective, or it is not. So saying something is "equally" subjective doesn't really mean anything. Yet, I've stated that I find morals to be subjective, and colour choice obviously is, but you still don't see that you just keep assuming I'm going to see murder as objective and repeating yourself.Once something is subjective, it cannot be "put into objective form" and have any meaning.I'm sure you find this obvious with the colours:"One should prefer the colour red to the colour blue".I've put that in "objective form" as you put it.. but we both know that saying it like this is meaningless. It's just someone thinking they know better than everyone else and forcing their thoughts on others.To me, murder is exactly the same."One should not murder" does not remove murder's subjectivity to me. It's only someone thinking they know better than everyone else and forcing their thoughts on others. Or.. more likely just someone leaveing out the reasoning behind why one should not murder because it is generally taken for granted. With "the reasoning" being the exact logic I layed out in that previous post.You can see that the colours are obviously subjective. The problem is that you do not see murder in the same.. obvious subjectivity, I do. I see murder as "equally" subjective as colour preference.However, I've certainly spent a lot more concentrated time on figuring out why I find murder immoral then my colour preference. "Subjectivity" may very well only have one level, but "importance" most certainly does not. And my moral value of Thou Shall Not Kill, although being subjective, definitely has a massive amount of importance over my favorite colour.

Exactly. This is what I've been saying since my first post. The moral rule against murder is subjective. I feel you are getting close to thinking about the Law against Murder in our society though.. the Moral Rule against murder and the Law against Murder in our society are two different things to accept. I don't agree with you here. I don't see how the ground is moral in nature.The ground is, pretty much Premise A: I find self-preservation to be of importance to me.That doesn't seem moral to me in anyway. It only seems to be a point. You either accept it or you don't.But.. take out this "moral in nature" part:

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If you don't accept the ground, then there's no reason to accept the rule it's supposed to prove.

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Exactly. This is how logic works. And it's what I've been saying all along. If you accept the subjective ground, then you accept the moral. If not, then you do not accept the moral. The fact that the ground (premise) is subjective forces the moral (conclusion) to be subjective.But this is very different than "an idea without ground". There certainly is a ground here.. it's just subjective, and therefore the conclusion is only accepted if you accept the ground.

I most certainly do think they are logical. Do you disagree? My logic is sitting in that post back there. You are free to say which part you do not feel is logical.

I think I see what you are saying.. the subjective moral is based on a subjective premise, and is therefore arbitrary.I would only agree to this if you can show me how our feelings are arbitrary.I believe that our feelings are not arbitrary. Although I do think that they have some input from genetics, and are therefore partly a crap-shoot on initial settings. And that the early years of our lives our feelings are, on the majority, formed by our environment and elders' guidance. But I aslo believe that there comes a point where one reaches conscious awareness enough to become responsible for logical decisions. And at that point, one is responsible for deciding to learn enough to develop their feelings into the sort of person they want to be. This, I think, is the major factor in how we feel (for feelings related to morals, anyway). And is therefore why I do not think our feelings are arbitrary.

"If they were logical, they would be logically binding."They are logically binding. But like all logic, if you do not accept the premise, there is no reason to accept the conclusion.Mathematics has the nice feature of having every premise being objective. Therefore, if you do not accept a mathematical premise, you are either wrong or the premise is wrong. Here, a premise is subjective, and you must decide if it is acceptable to you or not. But a subjective premise cannot be "wrong" in the same way that it cannot be "right".