I agree laws are in place to enforce stability; and the basis for laws that are enforced should be mutually acknowledged moral standards (really anything that stems from the golden rule). Unfortunately, ppl tend to push for their opinions on morality that fall outside the “treat others as you’d want them to treat u” standard and this leads to political incentives to put laws in place that are rather obviously nonsensical and subjective. My real question was basically is morality only a concept relative to what one prioritizes as most important, or is there some absolute certainty that the universe dictates for what is or isn’t moral, similarly to laws in physics? A further offshoot of this which frankly interests me even more is could the reason for all immoral acts boil down to the individual(s) that do them simply not knowing or understanding why what they are doing is unnecessary and wrong, or bc they don’t see things from the perspective of others they victimize, as in some cases of violence (and possibly perceive as enemies or threats who deserve it)?

@ChaseMcKinley From my perspective, morality is man-made -- a concept that changes as time passes. There is no absolute certainty (except death and taxes In philosophy there are logic statements to prove or disprove something. You could try that -- though I doubt there is anything scientific about morality except measuring it. In the US, 100 years back it was immoral for a proper woman to show her ankle. Now it's not. How did it change from over the ankle to mini skirts? (not that I object to mini skirts)? You could spend years studying the styles of dresses but never fully understand how the morals had changed. No one writes about it.

In retrospect I agree the word arbitrary could have been better replaced by the word “relative”. I think maybe I wanted to include arbitrary since it could technically Thacker an arguable presence in the implications from accepting that rather than morals being fundamental truths like a priori arguments in math and logic to serve as a foundation, they (morals) are relative only to what the individual or group who holds and applies them prioritizes as most important tk him/her/them

Very true. The only “objective” thing about such a morality is that it would be enforced by armed government service individuals who have the moral rules recorded in a constitution that would act as an “objective” standard by which to impose punishment...kind of like religiously founded governments which inevitably keep raising the bar for numbers of violent punishments over trivial nonsense.

@ChaseMcKinley I do agree that Theocratic governments tend to be very tyrannical and violent, but that's not exactly what I'm pointing to. One of the core problems with the idea of objective morality is it implies that there are any morals that can be applied universally.

Let's start with what is most likely the most universal moral Thou shalt not steal. Some would argue that murder slash killing is a more Universal idea but given how many societies require it of its members it's really not.

Are you prepared to live in a society that believes the idea that you cannot steal anything is an objective moral truth without exception that will treat all instances of violation of this moral principle equally? At base Lance sounds like a pretty easy thing to do until you find yourself lost in a mountain in the middle of the winter with a young child standing outside a house with no one in it. In that moment the morally correct thing to do is to break into that house to keep the child warm and potentially help yourself to some food to keep the Child Alive despite the fact that you are clearly breaking entering destroying property and stealing.

The closest thing to objective moral truth are very vague ideas such as avoid unnecessary suffering and try not to harm others. Even simple ideas like this though start to get very muddy when you start dealing with situations of multiple individuals and what individual people considered to be part of our suffering. The underlying ideas of Morality In The Human Experience are far too complicated to have objective truth that can be applied across the entire population it just doesn't work. Trying to force a system over others and the population merely creates unnecessary suffering.

@Lifestone Very good points. I should probably add that the my theocracy looniness reference was more of a joke along the lines of saying that’s an exaggerated notion of where many ppl that add religious fervor to their political ideologies seem to want us to end up. That being said, while I definitely ageee with you that no given moral set of principles can be applied with black/white, objective precision, I don’t think it’s bc morality has any intrinsic complexity that is too broad in its scope of applicability to be made into something more analytical. I actually think it’s bc morality is a concept that is entirely relative to the individual who constructs it in himself or herself as a result of innumerable factors and influences.
The key thing about this notion of morality is that it is relative solely to the priorities and value systems that the individual or group implementing a moral decision have adopted for themselves.

@Lifestone I’m sorry for the previously mega lengthy reply, but a final note I would like to add is that the intriguing yet somewhat disconcerting implications of this thought process, for me, seem to be that the same action can be considered both highly moral (virtuous) and highly immoral (evil) based on the notions and motivations associated with the person doing the act. An unfortunate example that has occurred far too often over the course of history is when someone suffering from delusions that impede their perception of reality, or that has either deluded themselves or fallen prey to dogmas from others that convince them they are acting for the greater good when in reality we get something like persecution of innocents over religion or race fueled notions; or honor killings...

Those are my sentiments on the issue exactly. I basically just wanted to assess people’s different takes on the concept that morality actually is a social construct that evolved with ppl to help us survive through group effort. It’s just a very strange notion to consider...especially with AI debates concerning potential future conscious machines...the notion that a self aware robot that’s super smart with motivations I could never understand could justifiably consider its own existence a moral imperative to protect...even if it meant at the expense of a human beings with different goals or priorities

Also: Love the screen name groot reference...best character ever lol

@ChaseMcKinley Yeah, Hollywood loves to play with that AI theme. I just watched a movie called Singularity where an AI is activated (but one, like Skynet <which needs no intro>, that is hooked into every military system on earth) and in a nanosecond, determines that Humans are an infestation on the planet that needs to be eradicated. I don't subscribe to that logic because, for one, I don't think we would ever invest such trust in a "system." Anyway, that's another conversation. LOL!

@IAMGROOT another one entirely! I don’t mind the idea of a dystopia where I battle evil robot overlords as long as I’m successful; and maybe not maimed too badly in any given robot fights

State murder on the other hand ... perfectly acceptable ?.

Love the brevity ?
Also “sort of” ironically might sum up the answer to most of philosophy ?’s....?

@ChaseMcKinley
It’s more of a scientific response. Moral systems are predicated on human perspectives. So, there are universal themes across cultures, but that’s not the same thing as analytically dependent. So, sort of.

Lol very true. I used the term hypothetical to stress that it was just something along the lines of a thought experiment that could never actually be done in practice bc it requires an infinite amount of knowledge and processing capacity...but like u said about struggling with moral objectivity...I’m starting to get the impression that while my moral inclinations seem very reasonable and real...they are still just based on norms that entail survival. They’re only enacted by me and by others in society at the most fundamental level bc they help us work together as a group and survive

I agree apples and pears aren’t arbitrary since we can observe and eat them. But while we do have a clear cut definition of fruit, morality and moral standards aren’t very readily agreed upon. That’s why I have to conclude that we unfortunately don’t have the luxury of saying our moral values as ppl that aren’t psychopaths (golden rule for example) are objectively true...since they are actually relative to our prioritizing feelings pleasure above pain, and lives of people above insects...I know arbitrary has a bit more negative of a connotation, so maybe relative could’ve fit better in the posted question...

@ChaseMcKinley

Yes, but it goes further. In English lexicology, every word and phrase is made of three things: 1. The referrent 2. The visual meaning 3. The concept (everything but the other two), and this is why words have a definite meaning at any expression.

People disagree on morality because they don't have the sources to back up their definitions. Moral philosophy has a definite history, and the first philosopher to define morality defines the word, because it's his expression.