Is morality objective or subjective?

Question

I think its objective because its not you see your self, its how others perceive you. If it was subjective, then everybody is moral on there own standards.

Answer 1

It's both objective and subjective. For example, virtually everyone would agree that murder, theft, lying, cheating, etc. are wrong.

Then there are issues where not everyone believes the same thing. For example, some believe that homosexuality is immoral while others see it as an acceptable lifestyle choice. And maybe people would agree that lying may not always be wrong if telling a lie serves the greater good.

Taking it a bit further, some issues that most people would generally agree are wrong, would depend on how you define it. For example, not everyone would think it's wrong to make a personal copy of a rented DVD. And many people see no harm in downloading music and movies. And even when there are laws on such issues, there are usually some cases that may or may not be illegal.

And we won't even get into the issue of whether illegal=immoral.

Answer 2

Both - In a democratic society -we agree with some morality as we have laws which reflect the will of the people.

We are pretty nearly all agreed that it isn't okay to kill someone or steal from them. However in war-time all this changes and it is very good think to kill others.  

there is little that is absolute in time and space

U.S still exacts the death penalty -

if you think about it you will always find exceptions so mostly morality is subjective -

It is maybe a little bit  tempered by the thought of social shame but not enough to stop say paedophiles or our disenchanted disenfranchised members of society.

When it comes down to it we have free will and are not overlooked every minute -people set up different subcultures which make it all right to steal and kill.

Answer 3

I think it is a balancing act, it is not completely subjective but nor is completely objective.

Yes we as individuals will all have different views, but the views within our own society will not differ on most of them. For example in the UK it is wide held belief that the state should control the health care through the NHS, this is, in part down to morality which we have been socialized into believing through secondary socialization that charity or individuals left to their own health care would be less cost effective, with many unable to afford appropriate care.

On the other hand, my belief on the death penalty for those that have murdered may be different from someone else's, even although the death penalty is illegal in the UK, there may people in favor of it.

Agents of socialization do play roles in our standards, our parents trough primary socialization will drill into us, at an early age of what is right and wrong, and of course it will have an impact, we will not agree on everything our parents agreed on, however we will for the most part in all probability, and again in all probability these morals will be society held depending on the most part the economic base and super structures that come out of them, for this I do have to side with Karl Marx.

Answer 4

Even if there was a universal truth/justice/ or morality, whether it be in an abstracted platonic ideon or God, the individual human mind is so frail and clouded the they would be impossible to understand. That's not to say that there isn't, as plato called "the Good" but maybe we can never fully understand it. Our lifespans are so short and our individual experience cloud our perceptions so much that its hard to percieve it. Maybe god or the good emanate through all of existence and there is a little bit of it in all things and ultimately all good things come from it. Who would an individual be to tell you that they know with 100% certainty. The answer is that no ones know anything with out a doubt. We may know a lot of things, with a lot of certainty, but never everything without certainty. Bottom line is that all we can go on is what we know, and we should not trouble ourselves with what may be, but what is. The fact is that for certain we can come upon a commonly held and maintained morality. That morality will fluctuate and change, sometimes drastically, sometimes not, but its all we have to go on. In fact thats all that religions have ever gone on. if Mohamed or Jesus or Moses were right and knew what god said, the unfortunate thing is that what has been left behind of them has been changed throughout time. The meaning of what little substance was left by prophets have been altered. Maybe Jesus was on to something but we certainly don't know for certain what it is he said. That much said, in short.

most morality is subjective, all truth is subjective, to the individual and the community. There MAY be a universal morality, truth and justice, BUT we will never have a full understanding of it.

Answer 5

What is 'moral' for one cultural-religious national group

may be degradingly immoral to the next one....HIGHLY

subjective to all , in any case...OK.

Answer 6

I disagree... reason being everyone has different morals. This is one of the values of being human. Our opinions differ and so do our morals. Everyone has their own moral values and if they didn't and they reacted to societies morals then everyone would be the same.

Answer 7

Some will say objective, of course, the very answer to your question is subjective!

I think that there is definitely an average, universal concencus on morality somewhere on the spectrum of all human belief on the subject.

Answer 8

i don't really know... i'm just guessing... it's subjective... sorry i'm disagreeing with you.

Answer 9

Tricky!  Culturally, I think morality is subjective, influenced as it is by the ideals/values of the culture one is a member of.  It can be argued that these homogenized values which influence an individuals morality serve the èlites`in charge of a country (those who influence the culture, ie governments).  An example of this being the `moral` value that taking illegal drugs is `bad`.  Im not getting into a debate on drugs!, just to say that it could be argued this is a `subjective cultural moral`due to the fact that it is in the governments best interests to outlaw (untaxed) drugs.

I think that subjectivity and objectivity (in terms of defining morals) is a question of ones viewpoint on society.  From an individual viewpoint, morals appear to differ between people and hence to a certain extent are unique to the individual.  However, if you say that the culture one lives in is influenced by wider cultural leaders (governments, the media) then morals are subjective; influenced as they are by the bias/viewpoint of the cultural/ruling elites.

Answer 10

Believe it or not, a word has often been employed to evade an either/or choice on this question - "intersubjective"

If morality were completely, 100% subjective, then there would be such a thing as an individual morality, and my morality would be as good as your morality - and you would have no basis whatsoever for telling me I was wrong, even if I were Charles Manson.

Morality is intersubjective, because it is a social agreement between you, me, and everyone in our society (however narrowly or broadly that is defined). It is not objective, as others have said, because societies differ in whether certain behaviors are considered immoral. No universal morality has ever been uncovered, although all known societies have a taboo against certain things, like incest.

For Durkheim, morality is one of the reasons that sociology is so necessary. There is no such thing as "individual morality," so we need a science of society to uncover facts about morality. Sociology, in his estimation, performs this task better than the individualist sciences like psychology.

Answer 11

There are moral absolutes, but for the most part it's all relative.