Morals Are Not Objective
But they’re not subjective, either
One of the biggest advances in human thought over the past century or two is the recognition that many of our values and structures are much more arbitrary than we think.
We have come to recognize that different cultures often have different agreed-upon norms just as they have different strengths and weaknesses. There’s nothing objectively more sensible about shaking hands as a greeting instead of cheek-kisses or bowing; different cultures just agree more or less randomly on each of them.
But what about when you’re talking about things beyond just everyday customs? What about the objectivity of decisions of morality?
The most obvious problem with statements like “there is no objective morality” is that almost no one really acts out this belief in the way they supposedly mean. If someone did, most of us would say they’re somewhere between “kind of a jerk” and “a complete monster.”
An extreme example: Suppose I come to your house, burn it to the ground, kill your loved ones, and give you a horrible disease to go with your burns. Philosophical quibbles aside, just about everyone agrees this is a bad thing to do. Some extreme people might say my behavior is justified if you’ve done something horribly wrong, but no one really advocates doing this…
