₦airaland Forum

An Essay On Objective Vs Subjective Morality

By Barry Goldberg

Morality — the system or method by which we determine whether actions are “good” or “bad” — can either be “objective” (a.k.a. “absolute”) or “subjective” (a.k.a. “relative”). Objective or absolute morality is morality based on universal principles that everybody agrees on and that do not change over time or from one culture to another, whereas subjective or relative morality is determined differently by different groups and is subject to change over time and in different places and cultures. Now, theists and atheists alike claim to be able to determine right from wrong, good from bad, but what type of morality can each group actually claim to have? Absolute or relative?

Let’s start with atheists. Now most atheists get their sense of “right” and “wrong” from the realization that other people are human beings the same as they are, and are therefore deserving of the exact same rights and respect as themselves. “People are people” may sound like a simple tautology, but it’s objectively true and it’s the core principle that provides atheists with the objective morality that lets them condemn slavery, murder, robbery, lying, etc. Now, this isn’t to say that all atheists are good people, since we all have free will and can decide whether to be good or bad, but at least atheists have something objective by which they can make value judgments in the first place.

What about theists? Well, they tend to rely more on wholly subjective morality to make value judgments for the following reasons:

Different theists believe in different Gods, each of which is said to have given different moral laws for us to follow. So, right there, theistic morality is wholly subjective based on which God you believe in.
Even within a single God belief (Christianity, say), there are tons and tons of different denominations and sects who all interpret the supposed “word of God” in different ways from a purely doctrinal standpoint. So, once again, even within the Christian faith, theistic morality is wholly subjective based on which particular sect or denomination you belong to.
Even within a single sect or denomination, it’s pretty much guaranteed that different preachers or even individual members will have their own specific interpretations as to just what their God wants them to do. Should you shun homosexuals or welcome them? Should you donate money to homeless people or is that just encouraging bad habits? Do women really need to be subject to their husbands’ will or not? Is it enough to just accept Jesus into your heart, or do you actually need to do good deeds and repent for your sins? Is it really harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, or is that just a metaphor? Does “turn the other cheek” mean you can’t own a gun for self-defense? Did God really just promise to “answer prayers” (and sometimes the answer is “no”) or did he actually promise to give “whatsoever we ask for in faith”? Is lusting after a woman in your heart really the same as committing adultery, or was Jesus just being metaphorical again? What’s the best way to “love thy neighbor as thyself” while still preventing transgender people from using the bathroom they feel most comfortable in? Is it OK to vote for somebody who claims to share your values if he talks about sexually assaulting women, mocks disabled people and lies all the time? What, actually, would Jesus do? And so on and so forth. Thus, theistic morality is wholly subjective based on the individual beliefs of each particular theist.

For theists that claim to get their morality from holy scriptures written thousands of years ago, many of the oldest commandments and moral codes from those books no longer apply today. The explanation for this is usually that those commandments were given for a specific group of people, that the culture and socio-economic conditions back then were different than they are today and/or that some sort of “new covenant” made those old commandments obsolete. It was OK to own slaves back then, but not today. It was commanded that disobedient children should be stoned to death back then, but we don’t need to follow that commandment today. Jews were required to keep kosher, but later Christians didn’t need to. All of which is to say that theistic morality can actually change over time and is wholly subjective based on the particular people to whom the moral commandments were given.
Now, keep in mind what I said earlier about atheists basing their morality on objective principles. Because these principles are objective, theists are capable of perceiving them as well. In fact, this is what allows, say, Christians to decide which parts of the Bible to follow in the first place and which parts should be ignored or reinterpreted away. The problem is, though, that many theists allow these objective moral principles to be overwhelmed by the teachings of their particular religion to the point where they are willing to discriminate against other people simply because this is what they have been taught is correct. Without the teachings of their religion they may never feel it right to, say, kill an infidel, or deny homosexuals the right to marry or treat other people as property. But because they have been indoctrinated to accept the relative morality provided by their religion, they end up chucking objective morality right out the window.

Now this isn’t to say that all theists are bad people or incapable of making moral judgments. After all, just because a moral principle is relative doesn’t mean it is wrong. But it does mean that their sense of right and wrong is at the whim of their religious indoctrination and this is why a lot of otherwise good people can be convinced to do some very bad things (or, as once put it, “With or without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”) In other words, without a source of objective morals to rely on, theists can only do what they are told is right, regardless of whether it actually is right.

babytoun:
I won't be surprised if a proper check reveal that he doesn't even have a valid drivers license

simplesearch:
Nothing special about this even David Cameron helped packed his belongings from his official residence after resigning due to the Brexit vote. Leaders in Advance climes do freely ride on train with other citizens.

folly22:
He is owing 17 months salary and pension
Retirees are being owned

Seun:
You can use https://www.nairaland.com/4603041/atheists-theists-morality-subjective-objective for the discussion on morality.

magoo10:
Aregbesola apx is owing osun workers 10months salary ,let's see if the people will be allowed to reject him or they will still rig the elections.

sarrki:
Aregbesola paid salaries and there is infrastructure to show

ScienceWatch:
Let's settle this once and for all. You should borrow Butterflyle0's radioactive dustbin for a long term solution.
What are your thoughts on this ?

rekinomtla:
I suggest you stop reading articles by atheist apologists such as Garry Goldberg. Even a Wikipedia page does better job than him. Like him you confusing objective morality with absolute morality.

ScienceWatch:
I welcome your mockery after I studied the Atheists Training Manual, it help me understand why mockery is so very important to an Atheist.
I am but an insignificant grain of sand in the greater scheme of this magnificent creation made possible by the creative power of God through his Son Jesus Christ with verifiable evidence of the work done daily worldwide by the amazing Holy Spirit to effectively support Christians faith that Jesus' words are based on verifiable evidence.

There are also sufficient evidence of the reality of Satan's fake light.

rekinomtla:
Go read my post again or just quote (or misquote like before) where I said atheist are ok with people abusing them or their children. I strongly advise you to stop tackling strawmans when replying to someone.

rekinomtla:
Thanks for explaining why atheists and supposedly non-atheists like yourself believe morality is an invention [s]and that "there's nothing objectively wrong with murder, rape, pedophilia etc."[/s]

rekinomtla:
It was never my intention to show morality was objective, I never even said it was in any of my posts here. I merely stated what some atheists believe about morality. So far all atheists here have agreed with me about what they believe about morals. They just seem to be bother about someone stating their position for some reason.

rekinomtla:
Why is it that every I mention what atheists believe about morality they get so defensive? Usually replying by confirming what I said about their beliefs about morality but at the same time trying to convince me that morality is all subjective?

An Essay On Objective Vs Subjective Morality

By Barry Goldberg

Morality — the system or method by which we determine whether actions are “good” or “bad” — can either be “objective” (a.k.a. “absolute”) or “subjective” (a.k.a. “relative”). Objective or absolute morality is morality based on universal principles that everybody agrees on and that do not change over time or from one culture to another, whereas subjective or relative morality is determined differently by different groups and is subject to change over time and in different places and cultures. Now, theists and atheists alike claim to be able to determine right from wrong, good from bad, but what type of morality can each group actually claim to have? Absolute or relative?

Let’s start with atheists. Now most atheists get their sense of “right” and “wrong” from the realization that other people are human beings the same as they are, and are therefore deserving of the exact same rights and respect as themselves. “People are people” may sound like a simple tautology, but it’s objectively true and it’s the core principle that provides atheists with the objective morality that lets them condemn slavery, murder, robbery, lying, etc. Now, this isn’t to say that all atheists are good people, since we all have free will and can decide whether to be good or bad, but at least atheists have something objective by which they can make value judgments in the first place.

What about theists? Well, they tend to rely more on wholly subjective morality to make value judgments for the following reasons:

Different theists believe in different Gods, each of which is said to have given different moral laws for us to follow. So, right there, theistic morality is wholly subjective based on which God you believe in.
Even within a single God belief (Christianity, say), there are tons and tons of different denominations and sects who all interpret the supposed “word of God” in different ways from a purely doctrinal standpoint. So, once again, even within the Christian faith, theistic morality is wholly subjective based on which particular sect or denomination you belong to.
Even within a single sect or denomination, it’s pretty much guaranteed that different preachers or even individual members will have their own specific interpretations as to just what their God wants them to do. Should you shun homosexuals or welcome them? Should you donate money to homeless people or is that just encouraging bad habits? Do women really need to be subject to their husbands’ will or not? Is it enough to just accept Jesus into your heart, or do you actually need to do good deeds and repent for your sins? Is it really harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, or is that just a metaphor? Does “turn the other cheek” mean you can’t own a gun for self-defense? Did God really just promise to “answer prayers” (and sometimes the answer is “no”) or did he actually promise to give “whatsoever we ask for in faith”? Is lusting after a woman in your heart really the same as committing adultery, or was Jesus just being metaphorical again? What’s the best way to “love thy neighbor as thyself” while still preventing transgender people from using the bathroom they feel most comfortable in? Is it OK to vote for somebody who claims to share your values if he talks about sexually assaulting women, mocks disabled people and lies all the time? What, actually, would Jesus do? And so on and so forth. Thus, theistic morality is wholly subjective based on the individual beliefs of each particular theist.

For theists that claim to get their morality from holy scriptures written thousands of years ago, many of the oldest commandments and moral codes from those books no longer apply today. The explanation for this is usually that those commandments were given for a specific group of people, that the culture and socio-economic conditions back then were different than they are today and/or that some sort of “new covenant” made those old commandments obsolete. It was OK to own slaves back then, but not today. It was commanded that disobedient children should be stoned to death back then, but we don’t need to follow that commandment today. Jews were required to keep kosher, but later Christians didn’t need to. All of which is to say that theistic morality can actually change over time and is wholly subjective based on the particular people to whom the moral commandments were given.
Now, keep in mind what I said earlier about atheists basing their morality on objective principles. Because these principles are objective, theists are capable of perceiving them as well. In fact, this is what allows, say, Christians to decide which parts of the Bible to follow in the first place and which parts should be ignored or reinterpreted away. The problem is, though, that many theists allow these objective moral principles to be overwhelmed by the teachings of their particular religion to the point where they are willing to discriminate against other people simply because this is what they have been taught is correct. Without the teachings of their religion they may never feel it right to, say, kill an infidel, or deny homosexuals the right to marry or treat other people as property. But because they have been indoctrinated to accept the relative morality provided by their religion, they end up chucking objective morality right out the window.

Now this isn’t to say that all theists are bad people or incapable of making moral judgments. After all, just because a moral principle is relative doesn’t mean it is wrong. But it does mean that their sense of right and wrong is at the whim of their religious indoctrination and this is why a lot of otherwise good people can be convinced to do some very bad things (or, as once put it, “With or without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”) In other words, without a source of objective morals to rely on, theists can only do what they are told is right, regardless of whether it actually is right.

rekinomtla:
Stop being silly, I specifically said atheists believe there's nothing objectively wrong. You for some weird reason left out the word objective when you misquoted me so that you could twist my words to mean what you want it to mean. Nowhere did I say atheists are OK with criminals abusing their children. I said they see nothing objectively wrong with pedophilia or murder or rape or anything else for that matter.

Put your reading glasses on next time you before you attack strawmans.

rekinomtla:
Those are the christians that become atheists. They eventually come to believe they just apes who invented morality. Thats why most atheists believe morality is subjective and is an invention of humanity. That the belief that murder, stealing etc is wrong is just an invention of soceity, in their reality there's nothing objectively wrong with murder, rape, pedophilia etc.

ITbomb:
It is evident that this guy does not even understand what he is doing

Patrioticooduan:
These flat.heads with their mumu brain. She did not school in Nigeria.
Flat.headed pathetic landlocked Biafrans

GreatOlu1:
The only confused state.
State of osun or osun state.

Butterflyle0:
Take your accusations to the doorstep of PDP because that is where it belongs.

They are behind the unrest and killings. If they could be behind boko haram then what are the alleged herdsmen?

Hunger is due to the recession PDP put us into and not APC.

APC only came to bring us out of what PDP put us into.

And I would quote a great mind like Sole Soyinka who said


"IF APC is not the answer to our Problems, there is no reason going back to the instigators of the problem.

I'm not a politician but I would do everything not to have PDP in Government in Nigeria."

Redhot111:
Your real problem is that you keep campaigning against Jonathan as if he is still a flag bearer. U are so bereft of understanding that u don't seem to understand where I stand. If u get the chance to look Tru my post before the 2015 election I will notice that I was a major critic of the Jonathan administration. But then Jonathan wasn't saving yet he managed to get the economy afloat despite the looting and all of that. You know why? Because he had a competent team. Atleast a placed a round peg in a round hole. But your bubu came in and immediately stopped importation of some food stuffs like rice on the ground that we WILL start to produce when we hv not actually started producing. Isn't that mumuism?

I ask you again, do you remember the major promises made by ur demi-god? How many of it has been fulfilled? They promised us change and immediately they got there they started telling us how that change must begin with us.

Nigeria is has never had it this bad in all of history. Is I ask you to score him on security, I'm sure u will not score the old daura skeleton 10%.

You must start to think outside wat they tell you on papers. A good number of people kicking against ur bubu actually sipped him during the 2015 election believing he has idea. Alas what did we get? An old fellow only good at cow rearing.

ITbomb:
So to return money after an embarrassing lack of implementation of the budget is an achievement, right?

ScienceWatch:
What is our world coming to? Has Christians read post No 360, we have an atheist preaching out of the bible .

Here we witness Budaatum standing on the atheist pulpit warning Christians to turn the other cheek and to be kind and loving as these atheist swine rob them of their precious pearls and mock, insult and ridicule their God and Jesus.

Budaatum strongly appeals to Christians to stand with their hands behind their backs while atheist trolls mock God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and by direct implication all Christians should surrender to evil.

What I see in post No 360 is well worn cheap psychology commonly used by atheists to prepare their targets for slaughter. Christians beware, satan can also read the bible, he can appear as light.

lefulefu:
so they supplying those countries eclectricity so that they wont Dam the river supplying kanji dam?.... Bro that reason does not sound convincing. Buhari some weeks ago announced that they will stop supplying those countries electricity. I heard it on the news..but then i guess he just said that to get some cheap political points since 2019 is around the corner. Sometimes ehn i prefer the trump type of policy. America first b4 any other country. Why is it nigeria is so scared to implement such policy in west africa? Its not that these african countries even love us.so why is nigeria govt licking their anal cavity? Do u know that nigeria pays the highest subscription rate to south africa's DSTV in the whole of africa? Other african countries pay cheap subscription rates but when it comes to nigeria ,DSTV shaves our head with a big matchete. Same with south africa's MTN.they treat nigeria like crap.we pay the highest rate to them and they dont care if we complain because many of these companies know nigeria is clueless. I can swear that Fashola and co are supplying togo,benin republic and chad free electricity. There is even some rumour that nigeria also supplies some parts of ghana electricity.nigeria will be forming big brother to the detriment of its own citizens.what a country.

HardMirror:
you dey craze i swear!

ChristianNorth:
"Ok let just believe the Big Bang theory is true, the primordial atom that expanded and exploded into our universe, who did it come to be and what was the source of that energy? None of them was able to answer that.

akdjr:
If truly that money ritual real, why are ritualist not among the richest people in the world?

Martinez19:
I am an atheist. Other atheists on nairaland you will come to know are johnydon22, hopefulLandlord, hahn, Seun(the owner of Nairaland), 1Sharon, Tozara, Ladyhippolyta88, proudgorgeousga, akintom, segunojo886, Adepeter2027, dalaman, CAPSLOCKED etc. Have a wonderful deconversion journey.