Is morality subjective or objective?

[CaptainF]

Who knows.

I know what my morals are, that's all that matters.

 

[Prince_Imrahil]

C'mon perfection, what do you think of my deductive reasoning on objectivity? Surely philosophical inquiry is not above logic!

Who knows.

I know what my morals are, that's all that matters.

That's all that matters to you, and by all means, thats all that should, but I don't care about all that matters to you, or your morals at all! That's not what the question is about, it's an academic inquiry for those who would care to put thought into the matter!

 

[Fifty]

C'mon perfection, what do you think of my deductive reasoning on objectivity? Surely philosophical inquiry is not above logic!

It's generally above deductive logic, not logic broadly construed. That said, it isn't as if deductive logic isn't important when evaluating certain arguments, its just that no interesting philosophical problems (outside of philosophical logic and perhaps some philosophy of language questions) can or will be solved by deductive logic.

 

[Prince_Imrahil]

Well fifty what do you make of the logic or lack of below?

But the question is, is what we agree to guided by basic objective principles such as that the logic and reason that would allow humanity to survive as a species? And you can't say this is subjective - to survive we must not kill eachother off, so its objectively logical and right to make rules that makes killing minimal, right?

And interesting philosophical questions above deductive logic hardly ever make sense or have any real meaning or purpose, unless you can cite me a good example!

 

[Fifty]

And interesting philosophical questions above deductive logic hardly ever make sense or have any real meaning or purpose, unless you can cite me a good example!

There are some interesting issues in the philosophy of language that are dealt with using symbolic/deductive logic. An example would be various philosophical questions as to the notion of reference and linguistic meaning. A more specific example would be, for instance, Davidson's solution as to questions of the logical structure of certain types of sentences by quantifying (a logical notion) over events. Or Frege's attempt to solve various problems with the notion of reference in linguistic meaning. You can probably find a copy of Frege online, search for "On Sense and Nominatum" or somesuch (the title is translated numerous different ways).

Philosophical logic is a very robust field. There is a good (though advanced) online journal called the Australian Journal of Logic, that you can check out. It doesn't require a subscription or anything so that's nice.

As to your specific argument, it takes the form of a standard philosophical argument, but it certainly isn't any meaningful use of deductive logic.

 

[Prince_Imrahil]

Thanks for the information, will definately check it out!

Back to the example, you seem to think that the subjectivity of morals is a load of crap, so what then, if not deductive logic, do you think can be used to identify the objectivity of morals?

And can you point out the flaws of the example or does it make any case for the basis of morality?

 

[angeleyes]

[....] Surely philosophical inquiry is not above logic! [....]

Of course not, but you need much much much more than logic.