Can Morality Be Objective?
We end up with a good chunk of conflicts as we progress further in life. This is natural and normal since humans are different and such differences result in disagreements.
That being said, what is the role of morals exactly here? Can an action be moral for everyone regardless of the situation, are there exceptions or is it unique for everyone?
It’s interesting to think about. Morality of an action is determined by our intentions and outcomes as we discussed previously but are there such things such as moral facts?
Facts are things that are true regardless. Sun is the sun regardless whether I am on the moon, venus, earth or if it is day or night.
A moral fact is the same but on morality. You must have heard of it since you have heard of religion. Whether it’s the deadly sins or rules about the religion, these are considered as moral facts in the religion.
Even if we take a scenario where sinning is for the greater good of saving countless lives, a sin is still a sin and the binary nature won’t change regardless of how bad or good the situation is because that’s what it is: a moral fact.
So a moral fact is generally used without exceptions. A common one we hear in our daily lives is the sentiment of the public and mostly the justice system as well: murder is wrong.
Most people don’t question or think why it’s wrong and other than appropriate self-defense, the justice system gives a penalty for you. An exception yes but a very difficult and tightly bound one.
That being said, it is very hard to prove moral facts and especially claim we live in a reality where there are only moral facts and such a reality may be called one of objective morality.
But to compose every action and its corresponding morality is obviously impossible so it seems that if anyone tries to construct it, they try to deal with the ones that matter and apply to most people and frequency.
The origin of such an objective reality is questionable however. What is the source of such a thing? God? Natural laws of the world? Innate? The government’s law?
If it’s god then there is a matter of extraordinary claim meeting extraordinary evidence and such an evidence is likely not found and thus, a strong assumption.
If it’s natural laws then there’s a question of how did you even find it? Of course, if it’s innate in every human which is an old naturalistic argument then it seems intuitively true but as long as there’s even 1% of the world’s population who disagrees with these general moral facts then it’s false.
The government’s law is an obvious problem. It’s already written as though it cannot be objective, which is the law is constantly updating to challenge edge cases and satisfy most people’s ‘fairness’.
However, many people may consider such an answer very dogmatic, rigid and say that we need to be flexible about morality.
Such a viewpoint is called moral relativism.