Humans have a natural, built-in sense of morality. It's thought that this innate sense of morality may have been responsible for mankind's continued ability to survive as a whole. (Greater good vs individual needs)
I felt the rest of his post was needed for context, because the idea that we have a natural, built-in sense of morality raises the question how that happened. The post provides a natural explanation for how that could happen.
Each of the studies cited in the article acknowledge that very young children have an innate, intuitive, pro social moral sensibility. The article recognizes that children's moral sense is further developed through experience and even indoctrination.
I should point out the careful word choice of "developed" leaves open the possibility moral sensibility is not necessarily improved.
Well, I'd like to weigh in, here. I'm hoping we can avoid personal shots.
In an absolute sense, I'm not sure I'd consider ANY standard as "objective."
Let's suppose (for a moment only) that an Omniscient, Omnipotent Deity went and wrote a single standard into all of reality below the quantum level, so that the smallest things that make up the things that make things into things were all based on this single standard. So, all of reality would have it. It would be universally consistent. But would it be "objective"? It would be the decision of a single being whose IQ was so far above mine I couldn't fathom it. So, a standard by a being far, far smarter than me, and potentially far better than anything I could come up with. (Presuming at least as much justice and mercy as me, but more brains and more ability to perform.) That having been said, it would be a subjective standard because it was formed by a being (even if this being was The Being.)
So, I may be misunderstanding what we're even discussing. (Forgive me if I am, if I am, it's not on purpose.)
When it comes to more general standards of morality, ethics, and so on, I find, for the sake of discussion, I keep drawing on the 9 box alignment grid from AD&D.
It's easy to picture.
Draw a tic tac toe board on a paper. Leave space all around the nine boxes. Leave space inside each box to write in.
Above the top line of boxes, write "Good." Below the bottom line of boxes, write "Evil."
To the left of the leftmost, write "Law". To the right of the rightmost, write "Chaos."
So, the top row are "Good," the bottom row are "Evil", the leftmost are "Lawful", and the rightmost are "Chaotic."
If it helps, think of "Lawful" as "ordered", and "Chaotic" as "independent." (I've found that helps, when discussing this.)
So, the nine possible Alignments are: Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good,
Discussing True Neutral ("Neutral Neutral") starts arguments all by itself, so let's skip it or leave it for later, please.
Lawful Good are those who say to benefit the most people, follow the rules. Superman and Captain America are Lawful Good. The Adam West Batman was Lawful Good.
Neutral Good says to benefit the most. Follow the rules, or break them, whichever works best. The TOS Jim Kirk was Neutral Good.
Chaotic Good says to benefit the most by circumventing the rules and freeing the people. Robin Hood was Chaotic Good.
Lawful Neutral says to play by your rules, and that's what matters. Jean-Luc Picard and Frank Martin the Transporter are Lawful Neutral.
Chaotic Neutrals avoid the rules and just want their freedom. Captain Jack Sparrow was Chaotic Neutral.
Lawful Neutrals say the rules are so I can hold power. Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, Saruman were Lawful Evil.
Neutral Evil say power is all that matters. Jafar from Disney's "Aladdin" was Neutral Evil.
Chaotic Evil's want the freedom to grab or smash anything. Jason Voorhees and Gollum were Chaotic Evil.
I left out real people entirely to avoid arguments. (We know Robin Hood by his legends, not his history.)
Of course, characters- and people- can have tendencies leaning one way or another while holding an alignment.
One Lawful Good may focus more on the Good than the Lawful, another may focus more on the Lawful than the Good.
(We might say the first has Neutral Good tendencies, the second has Lawful Neutral tendencies.)
We can discuss things in light of the alignment chart. (We don't have to, here or elsewhere, but we can.)
I've found it helpful discussing why people or characters are different from each other.
With the U.S. bombing of Iran, I've gotten into a couple of debates with Jews who believe God gave them that land for eternity and American Christians are supposed to understand that and acquiesce. (Old Covenant)
However some Christians (myself) believe that Jesus' crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension and glory began a New Covenant wherein Jews who believe in Christ are no more Jews but now members of the body of Christ along with the Gentiles who also believe.
The Old has been supplanted by the New (according to my belief). Here are the questions:
Would it be accurate to say that both of these beliefs are subjective?
Or, is the Jewish religion really the objective one, and the Christian religion the subjective (being an adaptation of the first)?
How does one talk about this issue only biblically then? That's what I'm trying to do. If you can develop some rules of the game that would satisfy everyone it would be terrific.
Three agents. Each following the god of Abraham. Each having their own scriptures upon which they justify violent suffering.
Did I fix it?
And thus you are right back at the heart of the issue. Should religious texts be accepted as the authoritative source? Three Abrahamic faiths. Which one?
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong....Hey! That would make a good song lyric.
I was thinking more along the lines of accurately defining the Old and New Covenants using objective/subjective standards which appears to be the topic of this thread.
I was thinking more along the lines of accurately defining the Old and New Covenants using objective/subjective standards which appears to be the topic of this thread.
I feel like that's a fool's errand. There's too much ambiguity for a decisive answer.
I was thinking more along the lines of accurately defining the Old and New Covenants using objective/subjective standards which appears to be the topic of this thread.
Defining the Covenants or judging the Covenants?
I think we established morality (value judgement) can be based on scripture, but it is still subjective morality. And that’s just fine!
I don’t see subjective=worst, objective=best. It may be helpful to understand the terms as descriptive.
With the U.S. bombing of Iran, I've gotten into a couple of debates with Jews who believe God gave them that land for eternity and American Christians are supposed to understand that and acquiesce. (Old Covenant)
However some Christians (myself) believe that Jesus' crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension and glory began a New Covenant wherein Jews who believe in Christ are no more Jews but now members of the body of Christ along with the Gentiles who also believe.
The Old has been supplanted by the New (according to my belief). Here are the questions:
Would it be accurate to say that both of these beliefs are subjective?
Or, is the Jewish religion really the objective one, and the Christian religion the subjective (being an adaptation of the first)?
I submit that these are conflicting claims to objective truth. I don't see anything subjective in either claim other than the decision of which claim to accept. Objectively, only one can be right (but both can be wrong, objectively).
How does one talk about this issue only biblically then? That's what I'm trying to do. If you can develop some rules of the game that would satisfy everyone it would be terrific.
We would have to restrict any references to the land post 1948. We would have to keep it in doctrinal (since in this forum too many of us would just say "No, God didn't give you the land, stop using ancient fairy tales as an excuse for what you want to accomplish in the 21st Century."
So the question would have to be, "do you believe modern day Israel has a claim to the promises recorded in Genesis and/or the Bible. To avoid politics, the answer would be Yes or No followed by an analysis of what the Bible has to say about the subject (the closest we could get to modern politics is establishing that modern Jews are the descendants of ancient Jews and Arthur Koestler was proved wrong by DNA).
I was thinking more along the lines of accurately defining the Old and New Covenants using objective/subjective standards which appears to be the topic of this thread.
The topic of this thread is objective v subjective morality, not objective truth claims v. subjective truth claims, a whole different subject.
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Raf
That last post didn't format the way ai wanted. Sorry.
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Nathan_Jr
Exactly!
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Raf
I felt the rest of his post was needed for context, because the idea that we have a natural, built-in sense of morality raises the question how that happened. The post provides a natural explanation for how that could happen.
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Nathan_Jr
That's fair.
Each of the studies cited in the article acknowledge that very young children have an innate, intuitive, pro social moral sensibility. The article recognizes that children's moral sense is further developed through experience and even indoctrination.
I should point out the careful word choice of "developed" leaves open the possibility moral sensibility is not necessarily improved.
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WordWolf
Well, I'd like to weigh in, here. I'm hoping we can avoid personal shots.
In an absolute sense, I'm not sure I'd consider ANY standard as "objective."
Let's suppose (for a moment only) that an Omniscient, Omnipotent Deity went and wrote a single standard into all of reality below the quantum level, so that the smallest things that make up the things that make things into things were all based on this single standard. So, all of reality would have it. It would be universally consistent. But would it be "objective"? It would be the decision of a single being whose IQ was so far above mine I couldn't fathom it. So, a standard by a being far, far smarter than me, and potentially far better than anything I could come up with. (Presuming at least as much justice and mercy as me, but more brains and more ability to perform.) That having been said, it would be a subjective standard because it was formed by a being (even if this being was The Being.)
So, I may be misunderstanding what we're even discussing. (Forgive me if I am, if I am, it's not on purpose.)
When it comes to more general standards of morality, ethics, and so on, I find, for the sake of discussion, I keep drawing on the 9 box alignment grid from AD&D.
It's easy to picture.
Draw a tic tac toe board on a paper. Leave space all around the nine boxes. Leave space inside each box to write in.
Above the top line of boxes, write "Good." Below the bottom line of boxes, write "Evil."
To the left of the leftmost, write "Law". To the right of the rightmost, write "Chaos."
So, the top row are "Good," the bottom row are "Evil", the leftmost are "Lawful", and the rightmost are "Chaotic."
If it helps, think of "Lawful" as "ordered", and "Chaotic" as "independent." (I've found that helps, when discussing this.)
So, the nine possible Alignments are: Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good,
Lawful Neutral, True Neutral ("Neutral Neutral"), Chaotic Neutral.
Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil.
Discussing True Neutral ("Neutral Neutral") starts arguments all by itself, so let's skip it or leave it for later, please.
Lawful Good are those who say to benefit the most people, follow the rules. Superman and Captain America are Lawful Good. The Adam West Batman was Lawful Good.
Neutral Good says to benefit the most. Follow the rules, or break them, whichever works best. The TOS Jim Kirk was Neutral Good.
Chaotic Good says to benefit the most by circumventing the rules and freeing the people. Robin Hood was Chaotic Good.
Lawful Neutral says to play by your rules, and that's what matters. Jean-Luc Picard and Frank Martin the Transporter are Lawful Neutral.
Chaotic Neutrals avoid the rules and just want their freedom. Captain Jack Sparrow was Chaotic Neutral.
Lawful Neutrals say the rules are so I can hold power. Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, Saruman were Lawful Evil.
Neutral Evil say power is all that matters. Jafar from Disney's "Aladdin" was Neutral Evil.
Chaotic Evil's want the freedom to grab or smash anything. Jason Voorhees and Gollum were Chaotic Evil.
I left out real people entirely to avoid arguments. (We know Robin Hood by his legends, not his history.)
Of course, characters- and people- can have tendencies leaning one way or another while holding an alignment.
One Lawful Good may focus more on the Good than the Lawful, another may focus more on the Lawful than the Good.
(We might say the first has Neutral Good tendencies, the second has Lawful Neutral tendencies.)
We can discuss things in light of the alignment chart. (We don't have to, here or elsewhere, but we can.)
I've found it helpful discussing why people or characters are different from each other.
https://easydamus.com/alignment.html
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oldiesman
This is not political... please follow...
With the U.S. bombing of Iran, I've gotten into a couple of debates with Jews who believe God gave them that land for eternity and American Christians are supposed to understand that and acquiesce. (Old Covenant)
However some Christians (myself) believe that Jesus' crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension and glory began a New Covenant wherein Jews who believe in Christ are no more Jews but now members of the body of Christ along with the Gentiles who also believe.
The Old has been supplanted by the New (according to my belief). Here are the questions:
Would it be accurate to say that both of these beliefs are subjective?
Or, is the Jewish religion really the objective one, and the Christian religion the subjective (being an adaptation of the first)?
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waysider
It all boils down to being a geopolitical issue.
HERE
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oldiesman
How does one talk about this issue only biblically then? That's what I'm trying to do. If you can develop some rules of the game that would satisfy everyone it would be terrific.
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Nathan_Jr
Three agents. Each following the god of Abraham. Each having their own scriptures upon which they justify violent suffering.
Did I fix it?
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waysider
And thus you are right back at the heart of the issue. Should religious texts be accepted as the authoritative source? Three Abrahamic faiths. Which one?
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong....Hey! That would make a good song lyric.
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oldiesman
I was thinking more along the lines of accurately defining the Old and New Covenants using objective/subjective standards which appears to be the topic of this thread.
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waysider
I feel like that's a fool's errand. There's too much ambiguity for a decisive answer.
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Nathan_Jr
Defining the Covenants or judging the Covenants?
I think we established morality (value judgement) can be based on scripture, but it is still subjective morality. And that’s just fine!
I don’t see subjective=worst, objective=best. It may be helpful to understand the terms as descriptive.
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Raf
I submit that these are conflicting claims to objective truth. I don't see anything subjective in either claim other than the decision of which claim to accept. Objectively, only one can be right (but both can be wrong, objectively).
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Raf
A corollary of my point is that all morality is subjective by definition, including God's, assuming his existence.
Objective morality, in that framework, is merely acceding to HIS subjective morality, which would be as perfect as we presume Him to be.
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Raf
We would have to restrict any references to the land post 1948. We would have to keep it in doctrinal (since in this forum too many of us would just say "No, God didn't give you the land, stop using ancient fairy tales as an excuse for what you want to accomplish in the 21st Century."
So the question would have to be, "do you believe modern day Israel has a claim to the promises recorded in Genesis and/or the Bible. To avoid politics, the answer would be Yes or No followed by an analysis of what the Bible has to say about the subject (the closest we could get to modern politics is establishing that modern Jews are the descendants of ancient Jews and Arthur Koestler was proved wrong by DNA).
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Raf
The topic of this thread is objective v subjective morality, not objective truth claims v. subjective truth claims, a whole different subject.
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