What is the source of your morality?

I agree that morality is subjective. Those who are religious will tell you it comes from God. That's certainly not provable.

My $0.02 on the subject is that the big ticket items when it comes to morality stem from the simple concept of doing or not doing what will keep the species viable. That's part of evolution.

While you may not agree with my source, the premise falls apart on its own, morality can not be subjective.

For the simple sake of the argument, let’s use terrible things like genocide as an example. If it is a subjective concept, then the person who believes he is committing genocide for the betterment of his people is not morally wrong. When obviously they are doing a morally wrong thing. Since it is subjective, “his or her truth is true.”

I think an easy agnostic approach to objective morality would be things like philosophies rule of universality. Simply put, apply the rule to the whole race and ask yourself if it will it detrimentally impact us all. If everyone took to the streets to commit genocide tomorrow, our race would come to a screeching halt, hence the objective conclusion that genocide is bad.

I should mention the meme came about from someone claiming that morality was a factual absolute.

It's a trick. The fact that your morality, I presume, has an agnostic approach means that your sense of reality is subjective from that perspective. You believe that if everyone understood from your perspective that genocide is detrimental upon the human race, then everyone would agree that it is bad. The problem is that not everyone has your perspective and might think genocide is a viable option. Do these people lack morality or do they lack your attempted objective view of it?

Certainly, most human beings now a days would probably agree that genocide is wrong. If you took us back 100 years, would we still think genocide is wrong? How about 100 years before that? And before that? So, if there comes a point where human beings once thought genocide was morally ambiguous, or even morally acceptable; what does that mean about morality?

By agnostic, I mean more along the lines of this: while everyone worships something, we may not all worship the same thing. So an agnostic view or philosophy would be something that doesn't put a name on it and can be universally applied to all views within the confines of reason.

"The problem is that not everyone has your perspective and might think genocide is a viable option. Do these people lack morality or do they lack your attempted objective view of it?"

Yes, and very simply yes. These people lack morality and will have always lacked morality. Again, applying philosophy's rule of universality, if everyone took up genocide tomorrow and wiped out the entire population, then it would be the end of the human race as we know it. There is no way to apply reason to that scenario and say it is a good thing. So I wouldn't need to attempt an objective view, the scenario and principle speaks for itself.

"So, if there comes a point where human beings once thought genocide was morally ambiguous, or even morally acceptable; what does that mean about morality?"

Again, it means those people in the past were immoral for thinking genocide was morally ambiguous. Morality ceases to be moral if it can be subjective to anyone, but rather must be objective to everyone.

I think the more obvious conclusion to a person who thinks morality is subjective is this (not a jab at you, btw, so humor me for a moment): the objective truth is not something they want to follow so they choose to ignore it for their "own truth." A selfish pursuit they choose themselves so they do not end up tethered to morality at all.

I think you're missing my point.

By your perspective, people of the future may think us immoral for eating meat, supporting capitalism, and assuming genders. Just because a future perspective may overrule a moral majority doesn't negate the morality of those previously. If these become the new standards of morality, which I hope they do not, then you'll be subjected to their judgement. From your perspective you might think their judgement is harsh, unrealistic, or wrong. Does that make them more moral than you? Does that make you more moral than them?

If morality can change, then it is subjective.

Anything intangible is subjective and that includes morality.

Sure, you can assign tangibility to morality but that doesn't mean it's not subjective.

I know it seems like it but I am not really missing your point.

"By your perspective, people of the future may think us immortal for eating meat, supporting capitalism, and assuming genders."

The key word here is "think." Put in the most simplest terms, subjective morality is a very fancy way to say "his/her opinion." Their opinion is void of any reason and universal checks and balances, so because it fails that morality test, it never actually is a moral statement.

"Just because a future perspective may overrule a moral majority doesn't negate the morality of those previously."

If morality is subjective and determined by the majority, sure. But it is not so there are objective ways to look back at history and say who was and was not morally "behaving." And there is no such thing as a "moral majority." That's is just a fancy way of saying mob rule.

"If these become the new standards of morality, which I hope they do not, then you'll be subjected to their judgement."

Calling an opinion a moral standard does not make it an actual moral stance, thus, them subjecting me to their "judgement" is not the equivalence of being judged on a moral ground, it's more like a bunch of kids having a bad opinion of me.

"If morality can change, then it is subjective."

Again, my point is it does not. People simply take their opinion and slap a "It's my morals and my truth" on it and think that makes it a moral, when it does not. I can slap a Lexus sticker on my Camry and called it a Lexus, the observable truth would still say the same: It is a Camry. So no, morality cannot change, just people mislabeling morality and their opinions.

"Anything intangible is subjective and that includes morality."

The premise is not true because intangible scenarios can still provide objectivity. I would challenge you to provide me with an intangible scenario that we can not reason through or construct objective principles from.

"Sure, you can assign tangibility to morality but that doesn't mean it's not subjective."

Care to provide an example of assigning tangibility to morality? Because morality is actually what is intangible and the observable results of good and bad morality is the tangible results. So morality exist in the intangible as the actual rule and morality exists in the tangible as the results of that rule.

BTW, I just want to say, I am really enjoying talking to you. You have remained very civil and you seem incredibly genuine. IOW, you stand out so thanks!

"Care to provide an example of assigning tangibility to morality? Because morality is actually what is intangible and the observable results of good and bad morality is the tangible results. So morality exist in the intangible as the actual rule and morality exists in the tangible as the results of that rule."

My assigned tangibility is just a fancy word of saying books. Religious texts, philosophy, fairy tales. Stories themselves emerged because they taught a moral. It seems that if morals must be taught if not by stories, but by actions, then that seems to lead credibility to my premise.

And thank you. I'm glad you're enjoying the debate. Cool heads usually prevail.

As we are laying it out, for the record, I do agree with a portion of your premise.

"It seems that if morals must be taught if not by stories, but by actions, then that seems to lead credibility to my premise."

I agree with a portion of the premise. I would tweak the argument as such:

Yes, morals can be taught by stories, philosophy, and religious texts, but is measured (judged) in action. In other words, I can tell you all day long about the golden rule found in the Judeo-Christian Bible, but it does not mean I believe it enough to put it to actions. It is only when it is observed that you can truly know if I carry a conviction to follow through on that moral.

With that being said, I still don't think that takes away from the original argument. Just because a moral can be taught or passed on through the tangible or the intangible, does not make it subjective. For example, that would make all methods of science and learning to be subjective. Morals as a method of objectivity are no different than methods of reason such as the scientific method. Also a standard developed, conceived, and refined in the intangible, taught in the assigned tangibility of books, yet it provides us incredible means to obtain objectivity in observing our world. Surely, should I scientist come and say he feels like the world is about to blow up according to "their version of the scientific method" that ignores the entire step of observing and recording results. Under the premise that such things are subjective, it would mean that scientist is in the right, being poorly judged by other scientists for their lack of subjective understanding. The truth would remain the same. The truth would be the world is not going to randomly blow up and his subjective conclusion is hog wash.

Now, you are free to disagree, but to me it makes sense that methods and morals all can be refined in the furnace of reason to produce objectivity that has been purified. What are your thoughts?