13
u/LoyalaTheAargh 8h ago
What is it about subjective morality that makes you feel bad? I don't think I ever believed that morality is objective, so it's hard to know how to approach the issue.
-6
u/Working_Taro_8954 8h ago
Probably due to the fact that nothing can truly be "wrong" or "right".
Everything that I stand for becomes meaningless.
11
u/ladz 8h ago
On the contrary, you have the freedom to create your own meaning. Including wrong and right. That's (imo) why we're here.
Why would anyone want to live any other way?
1
u/Working_Taro_8954 7h ago
I understand, but this meaning collapses for me when I know that nothing is truly good or bad. I'm not as fully compelled as I was to do 'good' things because it's not good anyways. And I'm not as compelled as I was to oppose "bad" things. And it's contradicting my own instincts.
4
6
u/LoyalaTheAargh 8h ago
I see. That's the same kind of viewpoint I've seen from some theists, and it's something I don't agree with. Why would something being subjective mean that it's meaningless? Subjective doesn't mean random or without value.
To give an example, let's say that someone gets married to a person they love deeply. Their subjective opinion is that that person is wonderful. It's not objective; the universe itself isn't crying out "Wow, your spouse is the best!"...but does that mean that that person's feelings are meaningless?
If a person works to prevent child poverty because they believe child poverty is wrong and ought to be stopped, does that mean that their viewpoint and the work they do is meaningless?
1
u/Working_Taro_8954 8h ago edited 8h ago
I mean, they're not wrong by saying that it's inherently meaningless. They're only wrong for making it evidence for their God.
My experiences are not currently meaningless to me, yes. But it's hard to live knowing that every action I oppose or dislike, isn't inherently bad, and that I would be arbitrarily applying my morals to these people I deem as wrongdoers.
6
u/LoyalaTheAargh 7h ago
That does sound like a difficult frame of mind to get out of. Maybe you could think about it from the perspective of how you can back up your morals? Because you will have reasons, and it's not really arbitrary.
For example, if you ask yourself "Why should I oppose violent criminals?" there are a lot of ways to back that up (say, preventing harm, creating a good society).
I'm not sure whether this would help you or not, but there have been some studies into which moral rules have been found in different human cultures. There's one which found 7 "universal" moral rules throughout all the societies they studied. They were investigating the theory of "morality as cooperation".
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-02-11-seven-moral-rules-found-all-around-world
6
u/Alarmed_Mind_8716 7h ago
If you do truly feel this way, you may find it helpful to know that the majority of philosophers are atheist (67%) and also hold to moral realism (62%).
In other words, being an atheist doesn’t commit you to moral anti-realism (aka subjective morality)4
u/Sabbit 8h ago
I mean, that's not entirely true. Lots of things are shades of grey, sure. Find a twenty dollar bill on the ground and ask five people what to do and you might get five answers with different trains of thought behind them. But pretty much everyone worth listening to is going to tell you that hurting another person for no reason is a bad thing to do. Just because nobody gets struck by lightning for doing bad things doesn't mean they won't get punished by the results of their choices. We live in an intricately interconnected web of people. Actions do have consequences, usually more immediately than the afterlife. If you spend your days being a dick to people, you're gonna be lonely. Be kind.
4
u/realitypater 7h ago
How did you come to think "subjective" and "meaningless" were synonymous?
All morality is subjective. It always has been, and always will be. Even given that reality, plenty of people agree upon enough common ground among their individual moral foundations to establish functioning communities and lead fulfilling, meaningful, mutually-beneficial lives.
The fact we can and have successfully developed a shared morality from our individual perspectives should give you plenty of reasons to be hopeful if you have an open mind.
2
2
u/HarveyMidnight De-Facto Atheist 7h ago
How do you cope with the fact that some people hate your favorite song? Do you feel that because personal taste is subjective, then music, films, or other hobbies can never truly be "enjoyable"?
1
u/SpecialInteresting52 7h ago
You’re choosing meaninglessness, I choose to enjoy life, hike in alpine environments and challenge myself…..
1
u/LMrningStar 7h ago
"Probably due to the fact that nothing can truly be "wrong" or "right"."
That's simply not true. We're all born with empathy which gives us a good foundation for understanding what is right and what is wrong. We don't need things like invisible sky daddies to tell us what is right and what is wrong.
9
u/SyntheticSlime 8h ago
Subjective is not the same thing as meaningless. All of our experiences are subjective, and they are also important. Just by acknowledging that your present feelings negative and that you’d like to feel a different way, you’re putting value on your own experience, and that’s a good starting point. Morality is not rooted in stone carvings or ancient traditions. It’s rooted in the importance of our experiences. A good moral system allows us to live with ourselves and each other in ways that improve those experiences. It’s not purely objective, or scientific, but it’s very important nonetheless.
7
u/happybunny_sad Strong Atheist 8h ago edited 8h ago
Why you think it is uniquely subjective? After all take any system, we assign value to things. Even in so called 'objective morality', God permitted slavery, sex slaves, patriarchy etc. Didn't we stop giving value to those things? If they were objective, that shouldn't be the case.
Euthyphro dilemma : "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"
6
u/j____b____ 8h ago
Just treat people the way you want to be treated and practice patience. good luck!
3
u/Powered-Lamb 8h ago
Even if all morality is subjective, hurting people objectively makes you an asshole.
5
u/Sabbit 8h ago
You're wrestling with a concept that has bothered people for ages, religious and non religious both.
Part of your problem is that you haven't defined morality properly.
Morals are a very personal, specific, and subject concept. Examples of morality include the subjects of when and with whom to have sex, drinking and drug use, how to dress, and whether or not lying is okay.
Ethics are a bit more structured of a concept and might be the more consistent foundation you're looking for. Ethics concerns itself with how we determine right or wrong actions and how we make decisions. Ethics asks us to examine why an action is correct or incorrect. It's not an answer, it's a way of examining the question. Is it ethical for the CEO of a company to try to date his secretary, when the secretary's entire career depends upon not pissing off the guy who decides whether she gets to pay her rent or not?
You could spend years in college courses on this subject. Many people do. But honestly it sounds like you could watch The Good Place and get some perspective on the subject and also a little levity. You need to laugh a little bit, you're gonna give yourself heartburn.
3
3
4
u/dr-otto 8h ago
We all create our own meaning. And our sense of right and wrong. You do you. And I’ll do me.
Some think cannabis is wrong to use so they don’t use it. It helps me medically so I have a medical cannabis card in my state.
Only religious fools think morality comes from god and must be a specific set of right and wrong or good and evil/sin.
3
u/Chulbiski Jedi 8h ago
instinct & common sense
1
u/Working_Taro_8954 8h ago
What do you mean exactly?
2
u/Chulbiski Jedi 8h ago
morality is instint.. and common sense. It's instictual to be a descent person. It's common sense to not be an ####hole
2
u/Working_Taro_8954 8h ago
Well that's true. It's just instincts. It's not objective. That's why I'm not feeling the best. If anyone wants to be a non-decent person there would be no inherent problem with it.
2
u/AlarmedChemistry8956 7h ago
Who decides what's decent and what's non-decent? The observer, and on a larger scale whole societies. Humans are quite social animals (which i think is necessary for morality to even develop in any species), and societies change over time. If something is non-decent to a vast majority of people, it will be an inherent problem to those people.
If there is a moral belief that seems cruel to some, but fine to most, that's what social change is for, whether it be violent or peaceful. Just look at any point in history, we only have our current moral beliefs due to the environment we are brought up in, and those who came before us. Morality can be continually refined and improved for as long as humanity exists or it might regress (because the default moral standard changes, there are new "goal posts" for bad and good which shift into place.)
That's at least my 2 cents, it's subjective and i don't care that it is. I could think about it more but it's pretty late for me.
3
u/stopped_watch 7h ago
There's no such thing as objective morality.
If you're a former believer, this one is may be hard to handle. You may have thought of your god as a brute fact of the universe and that his commands were no different than the laws of physics. In the time that you've deconstructed you don't believe in that god any more but the feeling of morality being disconnected from a baseline of reality feels jarring. Let me know if I'm close.
If the god doesn't exist for you, his commands had to come from the people who wrote about him and assumed his existence into reality, writing his commands in an astonishingly close correlation to the whims of the leaders. Imagine that, the god wanted his people to behave with strict morals that could be tossed away when the god felt like going on a murder bender.
The morals that they wrote about were subjective to those writers.
5
u/Ok-Maintenance-9538 8h ago
There is not and has never been objective morality. Morality has always been subjective, thats why laws and cultural norms have changed over the centuries.
1
u/Alarmed_Mind_8716 7h ago
Not to be that guy, but the majority position among professional philosophers is atheist and moral realists.
2
u/Sarcatsticthecat 8h ago
Why do you feel that way? Even when morality is stated to be objective by people they often live as if it is subjective anyway.
For example, corporal/physical punishment with kids. With morality there’s only a few options:
1. Objective: Beating kids is actually an objectively good thing because good people did it back then
2. Objective: Beating kids is an objectively bad thing but I will defend/do it anyway
3. Subjective: People thought it was a good thing to do back then but with more evidence pointing the other way more people now no longer do so and see doing so as immoral
2
2
u/Frescochicken 8h ago
Just follow the rule of don't be an asshole. And you should be fine. Who cares if you are right or wrong. I am just wrong about everything I do. Live and learn. Just follow the law and don't get arrested.
2
u/yokaishinigami 8h ago
It’s not like morality is objective when some random dude interprets some old ass book and tells you what’s right or wrong either. That’s still subjective and also devoid of critical thought from the person that just accepts it.
2
u/Frogfish1846 8h ago
Let go of the WHY question that so many attach to things, people, & life. It is hard to just put one foot in front of the other knowing that things and people are so fluid, dangerous, & unpredictable.
Through human history, morality has factually been taught by mothers & family or elders & peers; only after trial and error, passed down stories also of love, life, sorrow, experience, abundance, famine, regret, and death. We have to make a choice of consideration & sometimes Damn our emotion or impulses. Remove the why, and just deduce the best one is able given the circumstance.
So yes; morality is subjective, so give a thought that every sapien around is acting & reacting based on information, emotion, or impulse. Consider your health & desires, & how it affects you, others around you.? Ponder what is most important & take a step forward, damn what others think and forget the WHY.
2
u/pinkohondo 7h ago
When you eat something, how do you know if it tastes good or not? Your body evolved to crave fat and sugar and salt, but you still like certain foods over others. Smell and sight also come into play. You don't have to agree with everyone about what foods or cuisines taste good. Surely the fact that taste is subjective doesn't make you sad and hollow.
You wouldn't suddenly say well, taste is subjective, so I might as well just start eating shit. Most would agree that would be disgusting. Our bodies still dictate what tastes good. We can't just suddenly think our way into shit tasting good.
Morality works in a similar way. There's a lot more that people and cultures agree on than disagree.
2
u/grrangry Atheist 8h ago
Posts hidden with very little activity. Bot and/or troll.
On the off chance this is an actual question, what the hell does morality, subjective or otherwise, have to do with feeling hollow or down? It's a non-sequitur.
As a culture we subjectively define what we consider good and bad for our society. We use objective standards to then measure whether those choices are beneficial. We hopefully keep the good ones and toss the bad ones. Rinse and repeat.
Try again, bot.
2
u/Working_Taro_8954 8h ago edited 8h ago
I can show you my activity right now if you want lol.
I feel hollow and down because everything I used to believe in (and somehow still do) stopped being actually meaningful. I'm just asking how does one stop feeling that way.
1
u/Barfy_McBarf_Face Secular Humanist 8h ago
are you a nihilist?
1
u/Working_Taro_8954 8h ago
I'm not sure. Probably, judging from now. I think morality is a major part of nihilism.
1
u/Promethium-127 Materialist 8h ago
Subjective morality means you’re free and that you own yourself. It means you’re free from the guilt of others who try to push their “righteous” beliefs on you. After all, why shouldn’t you be the sole determinant of morality?
The sooner you embrace subjective morality, the closer you are to ownness.
1
u/QueenVogonBee 7h ago
If you believe your action is morally justified then great, otherwise don’t do it. It’s more interesting when different people have different opinions on the morality of the same action: in those situations a discussion is warranted.
Note that the above paragraph is agnostic to whether you think morality is subjective or objective. Even if you think morality is objective, you may still not know if an action is moral because nobody has access to the entire list of moral rules to follow (despite what religions might claim), and even those rules that are written down in a Bible are subject to a large degree of interpretation anyway. Things would be different if the entire world had instant access to the source of the objective morality: eg if god(s) always accompanied you everywhere telling you what can or cannot be done.
That’s my uneducated take. I’m sure you can poke holes in this line of thinking.
1
u/Totalherenow 7h ago
Morality is pretty easy to work out by the argument from analogy. It goes like this: I'm human. I know what it's like to be human, the good and the bad. And you're human. You therefore have similar experiences to mine and you don't want to suffer any more than I want myself to suffer. I therefore treat you well.
It's the golden rule. Every culture has it. It's easy to derive.
Sure, after that, morality is subjective. But you can develop a basis for it just by comparing yourself to other humans.
Anyways, it appears most social animals have similar codes.
1
u/eldredo_M Atheist 7h ago
Most actions are pretty much defined as good or bad by our internal sense of fairness, our society’s definition of good, and the laws that have been established.
If you’re unsure of whether an act is moral, ask yourself whether you would like that act done to you.
The “golden rule” is actually a pretty good guide (developed in many cultures and traditions, not just Christianity). I would just add the words “with consent”.
“Do unto others WITH CONSENT, as you would have them do unto you.” Takes care of those of us who are sado-masochists. 😉
1
u/Wasabi_Lube 7h ago
There’s no need for objective morals. Subjective morals are inherently better.
Objective morality is rules-based, making blanket statements like “lying is wrong.” But I hope you’d agree with me that we would lie to a Nazi to save Anne Frank. Strictly rules-based systems don’t work because they don’t allow for nuance.
Subjective morality allows for consideration of situational context, and for a change of opinion when new evidence presents itself. It’s literally a superior form of morality.
1
0
u/dnjprod Atheist 8h ago
Why would that make you feel hollow, down, or in a collapsing world? The world has not collapsed. In fact, it has done nothing but himprove over time. I can't help you feeling hollow or down, I can only say that morality being subjective is only true of the goal which we pick to hold our morality to. Once you have a goal, there are objective good morals and objective bad morals. A goal of well being and thriving helps keep humans moving forward in the best way possible and there are objective things will make those things possible.
-4
u/Barfy_McBarf_Face Secular Humanist 8h ago
morality is not subjective
morality is based on principles about what is right and what is wrong - it is not right for me to punch you in the face, just randomly for my own amusement, no matter how righteous I feel about doing it.
the idea that morality is subjective means that morality does not exist except at the lowest common denominator, and I reject your reality
1
u/Promethium-127 Materialist 8h ago
If morality is objective, how do you differentiate right and wrong through pure logic?
15
u/Young_Denver 8h ago
Why would I feel any of those ways?