Misconceptions in Objective Morality 3: Objective Morality is not knowable

Continuing with the common misconceptions is the notion that objective morality is not knowable.  That is, while one may conclude that objective morality may exist, it is not useful because determining what is objectively moral is impossible.

There is admittedly some truth to this notion.  The human individual is limited to his experience. His perception of his actions and the results of his actions are limited.  He cannot see the effects of those actions in their entirety. 

But is that the whole story?  Is the blanket statement the whole truth about objective morality?

Consider the statement itself.  If we can claim that objective morality is "unknowable" then we have effectively stated an aspect of objective morality.  But how could we if objective morality is unknowable? The only way one could definitively state that objective morality is unknowable is if objective morality is knowable in some fashion.  If objective morality were truly above knowledge, the most we could say is, "We don't know if objective morality is knowable or not."

But if we can discern that objective morality exists, it follows that it is possible to discern other properties of objective morality.  For if we determine that objective morality exists, we have discovered some knowable aspect of objective morality (the property of existence). 

A comparable idea is the notion of God.  If we determine that God exists (which arguably we have if we accept the notion of objective morality) then we concede that it is possible to discern aspects of God.  But we also know that we will never comprehend God completely, given that He is far and above our experiences and perceptions.

The same is with objective morality.  We can determine aspects of objective morality but we will never comprehend it completely.  At the same time however objective morality can be comprehended in certain aspects. 

But how does one cross the limits of human reason?  In order for man to transcend the limits of natural reason requires the higher entity to assist in that knowledge.  That is ultimately the purpose of religion, the statement of truths that bridge the gap between what the human can know and what the human knows cannot be known without the aid of God.  St. Thomas Aquinas' statement then makes perfect sense, "I believe that I may know."

Misconception of Objective morality 2: Subjective has no role

Though new to me there is a notion of objective morality that exists in the blogsphere that states that if objective morality is true, then the subjective view of an moral agent plays no role in the moral evaluation of the action.  To phrase it more simply, right is right and wrong is wrong regardless of the actor's knowledge.  The argument against objective morality then proceeds to show obvious examples about an actor's knowledge influencing the moral weight of an action.

The problem with this is that objective morality does not exclude the subjective actor's knowledge and/or motivations.  In fact in order to evaluate any moral action we must have some sort of objective standard with which to evaluate the moral agent's actions. 

We will consider some cases to illustrate how the subjective experience influences the evaluation of a particular action.

First, at the risk of invoking Godwin's law we turn to the only person that all Western society can agree was evil.  I present for our first case, Adolf Hitler.  The murders and crimes he committed against the world are quite well know and with few exceptions condemned.  Thus objective morality states that the actions of Adolf Hitler are evil.

Now let us ask the question: Are the actions of Adolf Hitler evil because he knew they were evil?  Or are the actions evil in and of themselves?  The Catholic Church holds that the actions are "intrinsicly evil."  That is, there are no circumstances where the actions of Hitler can be justified.  This is objective morality in the first sense:

That there are actions that are by nature evil in and of themselves.

Now let us consider a second example.  A man is walking down the street and sees a man approach a woman with a knife in his hands.  The streetwalker leaps into action and attempts to stop the attacker, killing him in the process.  The woman screams and points out that the "assailant" and the "victim" are play actors rehearsing. 

A contrived example but it illustrates an important point.  In this case the streetwalker hero is actually a murderer in the strict sense of the term.  He has killed an innocent human being.  Objectively speaking this was an evil act.  However, the personal culpability of the streetwalker is greatly diminished.  His subjective knowledge of the circumstances curbs his personal guilt in this matter.  But this does ot change the objective nature of his action, the murder of an innocent human being, as an evil action.

A final case illustrates how the subjective nature of a moral agent DOES influence if an action is a particular evil or not.  Let us suppose that you go to an auto mechanic, say "Bob's auto shop" and are cheated out of your money.  Sometime after a friend asks for a recommendation for a mechanic.  In your recommendations you mistakenly says that "John's auto shop."  In this case, while the information is false, the intent to deceive is not present.  As such calumny, the intentional spreading of false information, has not occured because the intention to deceive was not present.  There is the evil of false information being spread however.

For the case above objective morality has a second formulation:

X bad action under Y circumstances is evil.
X good action under Y circumstances is good.

In order for certain evil to be committed, the circumstances which oftentimes includes the disposition of the agent performing the action, must be present for the action to be evil. 

Misconception of Objective Morality 1: Everyone would agree what is moral

One of the objections to the concept of objective morality is that people disagree about what is and is not moral.  The idea is that if there is such a concept as objective morality then people would by and large arrive at a consensus about what is moral.

Embedded in this proposition are one of two assumptions:

1. Objective morality is easy to figure out
2. People are smart enough to figure objective morality out for themselves

We will deal with each of these in turn.

For the first assumption, it is not apparent that objective morality would be in all instances is easy to figure out if we assume that objective morality exists.  Strictly speaking the proposition of objective morality does not state how understandable objective morality is either way. 

I would conjecture that if objective morality is true then it would be hard to obtain and apply.  Everything in life that we commonly identify as important requires struggle.  Friendships, marriage, even things such as sports require sacrifice and effort.  Given how important morality is it would only make sense that some effort would be involved in discerning what that morality is.

The proposal that the disagreement over morality disproves the notion of objective morality comes from a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy.  It assumes that if objective morality doesn't exist we would see  people disagreeing about morality and actions.  This is true so far as it goes.  But the reverse is not true.  In fact the disagreement over morality tells us nothing about the existence of objective values.

The second assumption is to be honest a conceit of our age.  It assumes that from the moment we pop into this world we are experts in the realm of morality and spirituality.  By virtue of being human we know instantly all that there is to know about the human condition and how to order one's life. 

As C.S. Lewis states in Mere Christianity there are two indisputable facts of the human condition:

1. Everyone agrees there is objective morality in action if not in principle.
2. We as humans often fall short of that ideal objective morality.

No matter what humanity embarks upon, be it a moral or political or economic utopia, we as humans fall very short of perfection.  Even if we have varying ideas of morality we often do not even meet our own arbitrary criteria. 

But there is another aspect to the proposition that people can figure out objective morality easily.  Be it the atheist that proposes there is nothing special about humanity to the relativist that says human purpose is how we define it, the notion that the human condition is knowable to the human mind is based on a rejection of God.  It postulates that the human is capapble of knowing everything about the human condition because there is no other reference point. 

But this idea crashes on the notion that the human is finite.  The human did not create himself.  He came from parents.  His perception of the world is limited to only his experience.  As such the notion of the human being able to concieve his own being in its entirety is suspect as best, given the limited information available to reason alone.

What is objective morality?

In surveying the landscape I've come to the conclusion that most who debate God in the blogsphere simply do not understand the concept of objective morality.  To be more specific, arguments that deny the concept of objective morality often do not reflect what objective morality actually means.  The following post is an attempt to help with understanding with regard to what objective morality means and the implications of the concept.

Objective morality in short means that there is an objective standard by which thoughts, words, actions and inactions can be measured in terms of moral worth.  That is,  these items can be categorized into "good" and "evil" objectively, such that the evaluation of these items in terms of moral worth is not subject to the relative viewpoint of the observer.

Now here we will stop for a minute and point out what we have not claimed:

1. That objective truth is discoverable.
2. That objective truth is discoverable easily.
3. That the subjective state of the actor has no bearing on the evaluation of an action.
4. Actions and the person (agent) that performs the actions are not linked.
5. That the actions of a person determine the good or evil disposition of the person.  

All that we have stated is that there is such a thing as objective morality.  This must be kept in mind as we move to the next statement.

We will now make a new proposition. 

That in order for an action to be able to have moral weight, there must exist an objective standard.

If we consider that actions such as feeding the poor or genocide to have any "good" or "bad" qualities, we must have some objective standard to meansure them by.  If all morality is relative, that is an action or thought's moral weight is realitve to an individual's point of view, then we simply do not have any "good" or "bad" actions.  One person's "good" actions is another's "bad" action.  Thus feeding the poor is "bad" according to some who have no use for the poor.  Adolf Hitler's genocide of the Jews is neither "good" or "evil" because Hitler considered it "good" for the Jews to be eradicated.

In order to form a moral judgement of actions, there must be a way to measuse the moral weight of actions in an independent fashion.  There must be a standard.  A methodology by which actions can be measued.

The next few posts on this thread will discuss the common misconceptions regarding objective morality.  These errors are the cause of much bad argumentation and confusion.  I hope that in clarifying what is meant by objective morality much useless dialog will be avoided.