pm01

Hello everyone.

I've been checking into the site as often as I can but life has kept me busy for some time. I hope this post finds you all well and healthy.

I hope to contribute to this topic, but I am interested in reading your thoughts.

So is morality subjective or or objective? Is morality anything more than a feeling, and is anything we feel nothing but subjective? Morality does seem to change from culture to culture. So is it then moreover a mere subjective quality?

What is your (subjective) opinion?

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oc

Truth can be known.

There are moral truths.

These moral truths can be known.

Ground&Pound

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but here's my thoughts.

I think there are some universally accepted immoral acts; murder, torture, etc.

However, I think people find ways to justify being immoral.

Sometimes people justify immorality toward a minority to benefit the majority.

Sometimes they justify immorality through their religion.

So, I guess I'd say there is universal morality in theory, but not in practice.

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hardcore

Can I have a different option?
Morality is relational. Obligations are to one another. Thus the fact of different morality standards at different points in history, different morality standards between different cultures, and different morality standards between many different groups.

sgallan

So is morality subjective or or objective?

Both, and I can give you countless examples where this is true. Both good examples, and evil ones, all done in an objective way as well as a subjective way.

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sgallan

I think there are some universally accepted immoral acts; murder, torture, etc.

You are thinking in terms of your own moral box here (I don't mean that as an insult). Even within our own nation "torture", for the greater good (thousands of lives saved), is acceptable.

For example; if you could torture a person in the most brutal way possible, and you know you would get the information needed to save thousands of lives, would torture be justifiable in this instance?

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I am 48, bald, ugly, and don't own a single cool thing. Kids like me though.

sgallan

I have yet to see politics, or religion, in this topic, yet it was moved. I find this 'pulling the trigger too quickly" thing as annoying. You should probably just rename this topical section as "anything remotely controversial including religion and politics", that way it is more clear.

As for me.... I am annoyed and done with this particular thread which will now become a conversation that will go far astray from what it was intended to be because of the move.

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M Richardson

Scott - I am not so sure on that. (Not saying no, just that I am not sure.) When I was in Nam there were several occasions when, while interrogating a prisoner, he appeared to have information pertaining to enemy movements and actions that he wouldn't give up. I know that some Americans did use torture (and nothing as mild as water-boarding) in those situations, but I didn't, and neither did my partner. (We did use good cop/bad cop, where I would rough the guy up a little with the obvious threat of greater punishment to follow, but it was an act to set up my "good cop" partner.) I wasn't worried about getting caught or punished or anything like that, we just didn't feel that it was right. We didn't lower our own moral standards to the level of our enemy. We also didn't mutilate the dead, rape and murder civilians, steal, burn, or any of the other behaviors that COULD be justified in a dirty, miserable war. I don't know about saving thousands of lives, but sometimes the information we were seeking could, possibly, saved the lives of our comrades - more dear to us than those thousands. I saw that as a risk I had to take for my own honor's sake.

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ban basketball

Morality is the perfect example of a relative concept. Truly, aside from necropheila, I've found no culturally universal standards of right and wrong. It is entirely based on one's culture and what on'e sculture defines as right and wrong.

The very fact that, even within our own society, we debate the morality of the death penalty, abortion, pre-marital sex, etc, demonstrates how morality is a relative and not absolute concept.

It's ludicrous and idiotic to think otherwise.

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UGLY

Certainly you are not arguing that all morals are relative.