I see a lot of debates here about “good” and “bad” behaviors/acts, or about human rights in general. But whenever I try to think about it objectively, I always reach the same conclusion that there is no such a thing as defined "bad" or "good".
From a pure objective point of view, a human is free to do whatever they are capable of doing, as long as it doesn’t conflict with their own interests. But everytime I ask someone to explain why exactly things like killing, rape...down to lying (which i consider bad according to my moral code) are objectively bad, most of people here usually laugh, dismiss the question, or treat it as self-evident like it’s an axiom we aren't supposed to question.
But history and psychology show us that what we label as “bad” has not always been seen that way:
in roman gladiator games killing was entertainment for the masses.
Vikings and Mongols raiding and violence were celebrated as honorable.
Hitler and the Nazis genocide was framed as a “necessary good” for their vision of society, and millions followed.
people like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer admitted they enjoyed acts society calls horrific.
epstein's island.
some individuals even enjoy violent fantasies or claim to have found pleasure in situations we would normally call “assault.”
Morality is a complicated subject that I want to read more about, but the consensus seems to be, whatever harms others or yourself is considered morally wrong, and I am fine with that, we do not need religion for this which is not even really moral, it is just for the sake of avoiding punishment.
there is people who enjoy harming themselves or others how can you judge them objectively?, and by bringing religion or society it becomes subjective. last point partially true ,but if by any chance there's a creator of us humans, he would be the only valid moral source, unfortunately i dont think this will ever be a fact.
You say there are people who enjoy harming themselves, but let’s look at that under a different light. They may enjoy it because they are in control of the pain, they choose when and how it happens, but if someone else were to inflict that same pain on them against their will, they wouldn’t enjoy it. The same applies to those who enjoy harming others, once the roles are reversed, they’d quickly recognize the act as bad.
So, objectively speaking, if someone considers an action acceptable, then it should also be acceptable when done to them. If they wouldn’t accept it for themselves, then it cannot truly be called good.
"they’d quickly recognize the act as bad." What made it bad at the first place? "objectively speaking, if someone considers an action acceptable, then it should also be acceptable when done to them. If they wouldn’t accept it for themselves, then it cannot truly be called good" who are you and what logic allows you to decide this?
I'm not saying what's bad, i'm just saying humans do through their reactions, if one enjoys an act only when they are in control or when they consent but reject it otherwise, then their claim of enjoying it is false, the act itself isn't good. So when someone says hurting others is fine but objects it when the same hurt is applied to them, they've judged it as bad by their own standard.
But you're right, reciprocity by itself doesn't make everyone agree something is bad . Societes at the collective level have to draw a line, because without rules society collapses. So the objectivity doesn't come from me deciding. It comes from the logic that any principle that destroys coexistence can't be called good .
People can enjoy acts even if they reject them when reversed,what you said depends only on your definition of enjoyment.
"they've judged it as bad by their own standard" nope, they simply follow their own morality which says i hurt others good others hurt me bad, even if we take this rule you are using in consi there is a lot of issues with it, and Reciprocity is a social convention, not an objective truth.
“Objectivity comes from the logic that principles that destroy coexistence cannot be good.”survival of a system ≠ proof of objective morality. It only shows what’s useful for stability.you described social pragmatism, not objective morality.
"Secular morality refers to the branch of philosophy and ethical thinking that establishes concepts of right and wrong independent of religious beliefs or supernatural authority. Instead, it grounds moral reasoning in human faculties like logic, empathy, critical thinking, and scientific understanding. It encompasses frameworks such as humanism, freethought, consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics—all operating on secular foundations rather than religious doctrine."
Correct me if this is the wrong definition
It literally does as your argument is basic as shit. Its literally one of the first thing secular morality addresses. It also explains how we can go from selfishness to altruism.
By moral realism? You try to convince me about it without bringing any shitty arguments. Otherwise it works with frameworks which means subjectivity still exist among them. Sadly your mind didn't get this basic shit
There being subjectivity is also adressed in secular morality. Its ok though skip reading and educating yourself, instead make bs posts on reddit with garbage formatting. The fact you think secular morality endorses moral realism tells me you didnt take even 5 seconds to google either terms.
"There being subjectivity is also adressed in secular morality" if you read the post you know I'm not interested of this part,and with you suspending moral realism which can be combined with secular morality, how can morals be objective mr educated, who blame his lack of understanding, over self-confidence and missed the definition of the point he is talking about, to a "garbage formatting" which isnt garbage and everyone else understood .
Dude objective means that something doesn't depend on you to be existent, but your point of view of it is subjective.
Now, there is this thing we call "killing". I'm only one person, I see it good if it helps me in any way to continue my life (surviving). If someone or something kills me, then killing is bad, because it made me... well, dead.
So the moral idea of killing is subjective to me, an individual. because the quality of good/bad killing depends on me only, if 'm gone, then this quality is gone too, and killing becomes neutral.
Now there is a group of people, they share one idea, killing an outsider is good, killing a useful member of the group is bad, killing useless member of the group is good. Now the killing morality is not subjective in this group, why? because good/bad in killing is a labeled quality agreed upon by a whole group, and if one of the groups is gone, the quality stays the same because there is still members who believe in these qualities
How is my point of view subjective? "not subjective in this group" you made it subjective here by specifying a group so again you can't generalize it on all humans thus there is still no objective morals
empathy feelings are not objective evidence. "If you wouldn’t want something done to you, don’t do it to others" out of empathy becomes "i will do it as long as they cant stop me"
and whats your definition of psychopath so i can argue about it
I was arguing about morals being objective or not, I didn't judge your moral source I just showed that there is many moral sources and the rest is only your opinion you can't force others to consider empathy as a moral compass
"but they are objective in the sense that they are universal" complete nonsense, where did you get these "it’s rooted in shared features of human biology and psychology" "we are born with the ability to discern right from wrong"from? Cuz this isn't universal
Sadly the majority isn't as you said according to human history, and even if it is you can't just ignore who doesn't agree with your biological morals which you didn't provide me what's exactly biological about them.
"a human is free to do whatever they are capable of doing, as long as it doesn't conflict with their own interests"
what do you mean their own interests? people do make things that harms them long term out of ignorance or addiction
but then I don't think that's the main question in ur post. for something to be right or wrong it's usually built from some framework. and well to know which framework is correct can be pretty deep. I mean if you follow god commands you to do something you would just do it. that what would morally be right. even if that action cause you or others harm, harm isn't part of the equation it's about following moral command.
when we talk about the consequences of actions it becomes more interesting and material. but then what consequence matters to us. where is the moral value ? does suffering matter ? for humans ? for animals ? does death matter ? is there something else that matters more ?
well then imo I built moral framework like this. I exist. I'm a biological organism. what matters to me ? all the positive emotions I experience. survival,happiness,mirroring. some build moral codes of their own. empathy make me feel the pain of others as mine and thus what happens to others matter to me too. so then the question of "individual exploiting (kill rape) another individual" become self evident. I do not want that harm to befall me and thus it's bad.
oh yeah there's probably the conclusion that I don't put others on the same level as me. as in I may allow myself to kill others but not others to do the same. but to me this come with the simple thought of "what will other think of me if I act above them or ignore their moral code" just a level of awareness coming from survival. and this I shall follow the same rules layed out .
ofc you can talk about the human mind and experience are imperfect but I think this line of thought is still correct
for your first point maybe harming themselves is a part of their interests,and as you said later harm isnt even a part of the equation. and when you mentioned framework it became totally subjective, not every human is supposed to do the same. and as the same way killing might conflict with your interests ,it can help it in certain situations.
thanks that was a wonderful reply i really enjoyed reading it
I'm glad you enjoyed it I tried to just go as far as reaching why 7ogra is wrong for self interest. but we aren't self interested all the time that's why sacrifices are a thing. love make us do crazy things.
I'm personally a utilitarian I think striving for "general human wellbeing" (as vague as it is) should be the goal of the framework/systems we make and thus is the criteria of comparison between worse and better systems. so yeah it is "subjective" but it's trynna get into a real objective experience that we just lack the absolute view of.
also it's the consequences of actions that matter . killing Hitler or killing a saint is different.
Yeah i think your framework is great ,but the point this post leads to is that we can't judge any moral source by other moral source, which mean the framework that you and I follow can't be forced upon someone else aka consider what he thinks is right as wrong
Yes. You finally got it right. There's no good or bad.
They are man made artificial constructs.
There's also no beautiful and ugly.
It depends on the individual's brain. For instance, when i personally say "it's a beautiful day" i mean it's a dark rainy day.
Today's morals say that rape is bad, while it was the main breeding intercourse used by humans for thousands of years, since the first hominids.
To sum it up, almost every human on earth is conditionned by a system that tells them what's good and what's bad, what to do, to say, to think, to behave, to eat, to drink, to fxck... A real life matrix. Sad af.
It changes with time, it's not black on white. Humans evolve and change their way of thinking so yeah it's not a rule that is written somewhere.
Personally what I think is best for everyone is that as long as you don't hurt anyone it's a good thing, if you do then it's bad. Then if it's complicated, you try to do the least damage possible.
Humans can't agree on everything. Morals are different from a society to another and changes with time. We do what we think is best for everyone and it can never be perfect.
So for humans we only have one goal which is surviving, anything that conflicts with our survival will be considered automatically bad for us , and there is no such thing called bad or good I would like to change
them into :
Good = will help me survive
Bad = will not help me survive
And humans back then were not using their brains like they do now , they were just killing each other as a way of survival but now that after years and years of evolution, we humans learned from our previous mistakes and we got to the realization that we need rules and we need to set boundaries that will save our existence and survival
stuffs like “murder” we humans made it look so terrible to commit it so that no one does it again and we all agree on that it’s a bad action for all of us , like imagine everyone was killing others for fun , that will threaten all of our existence and ruin our peace , so we created those morals to save us at the end , and that’s why morals change over time because we are still learning more and more over time about how to make the human experience easier and more enjoyable
It is true that an absolute and objective morality doesn't exist because every action happening in the universe is just an unconscious chemical and physical reaction therefore it is neither bad or good, just neutral. It is only when seen through a living creature's lenses that morality can take place and label an act as either good or bad based on whether it leads to better chances at surviving or not.
Us humans are gregarious animals who need the help of other humans in order to survive, anything harmful to the group is to the indiviual. so even from purely selfish individualistic standpoint the others become just as important as oneself. this drived evolution to create and select traits like empathy and compassion, the ability to feel what others feel, which leads every indiviual to consider and treat the group as an extention of themselves.
i don't wanna be hurt-> i don't wanna hurt others.
i don't wanna get stolen -> i don't steal either.
and so on...
From that developed more complexe feelings like the sense of fairness, equality, justice and other traits that built the behaviors that keep the group from falling apart and helped us survive. At first it originates from instincts then is aquired through mimicking and shaped by environment. those implied sets of rules that dictates human behavior is what we call morality. As time goes, we evolve and get smarter and our societies gets mixed and more complexe, the morality follows and adapts aswell. the "group" gets larger we tend toward more equality...
Obviously the more close a person is to you the more the priority. and vice versa, until the person isn't considered a part of the group anymore and therefore will likely be treated as a threat and morality won't be applied. and most of the time we are too stupid and lack the capacity to make the right decisions even for ourselves. not everyone is capable of empathy, mental illnesses can happen to anyone. and so conflict of interest because life isn't just and perfect. that's why there wars and people hurt each other.
in the end we're just animals trying to survive on a floating rock in space.
It seems like there's some confusion between ethics and metaethics.
When people talk about what is "good" or "bad" and how we should behave, they're usually engaging with normative ethics. This area of philosophy deals with systems or frameworks that try to define moral behavior. In Western philosophy, several major approaches fall under this category:
Consequentialism, like utilitarianism, judges actions by their outcomes, that is, whether they produce more happiness or reduce suffering.
Deontology, such as Kantianism or divine command theory, focuses on duties, rules, or principles, regardless of the consequences.
Virtue ethics, which comes from Aristotle, emphasizes the development of good character traits and wisdom. It’s less about rules or results and more about becoming a good person and living a fulfilled life (eudaimonia).
These are just some of the ways philosophers have tried to define moral behavior.
On the other hand, metaethics cares about the origin/existence (ontological state) of morality. It asks questions like: Do moral values really exist? Are they objective truths, or just human inventions?
There are three broad views here:
Moral realism holds that moral facts exist objectively, just like scientific facts. For example, "murder is wrong" would be true regardless of human opinion.
Moral relativism sees morality as a social construct. What we call "good" or "bad" changes over time and between cultures. For instance, slavery was once widely accepted but is now condemned.
Moral nihilism denies the existence of any moral truths at all. From this view, morality is simply a human behavior or set of preferences, nothing more.
So when someone asks, "Why is this objectively wrong?" they are raising a metaethical question. And depending on your metaethical position, the answer might be very different. You seem to lean to Moral nihilism or maybe you were speaking hypothetically as in like state of nature, then maybe you're more of contractionist, but these are just my assumption.
Well, yes and no, I used chatgpt to polish the response because I'm lazy to edit it myself, but everything here is paraphrasing on my prompt, here's my original unedited response/prompt:
" There seems to be a confusion between ethics and metaethics. When people discuss "good" , "bad", and how people should behave, they are discussing normative ethics in which there're many frameworks with different metaethical views. In western philosophy, there're two main categories in a spectrum on one side: Consequentialism (like utilitarianism) and deontology (like Kantianism, divine command theory, contractualism...etc), there's also virtue ethics which doesn't concern about consequence or moral principles which cares more about cultivating positive traits and wisdom through action in order to achieve happiness and welfare (eudaimonia). The one I mentioned are frameworks philosophers developed to categorize or distinguish between moral behaviors. Metaethics on the other hand cares about the origin/existence (ontological state) of morality. There're 3 main categories moral realism which thinks moral principle are objective and are no more less facts than say scientific facts, moral relativism which believe morality as social construct and changing over time: say for example slavery is wrong is only true because of our current understanding or culture, it was permissible in the past and taken for granted, so what defines what's moral is social forces, and lastly there's nihilism which doesn't belief in any morality and sees morality just as type of human behavior no more no less.
Chatgpt can you polish it or phrase it better"
well, you said you appreciate any shared thoughts. I delivered mine, not on purpose of convincing you at anything but to clarify the difference between ethics and metaethics. All I received in return is rude replies to portray your "intellectual" and "moral" superiority.
How exactly? I respected your shared thought and I was humble at the end, maybe it sounded rude but it was most out of frustration cuz I mostly know how and when chat gpt is used and it's kind of disrespectful to just reply to someones argument by just using ai,again, not saying you did that or the infos chat gpt gives are invalid
My purpose wasn't to argue in favor of any. If you want more about moral realism, you can check Sandford encyclopedia, or the internet encyclopedia of philosophy https://iep.utm.edu/moralrea/
They do much better job at explaining these concepts.
P.S. If this conversation wasn't of any value to you, then I guess I'm sorry for wasting your time.
People often confuse changing perspectives with changing truths. Once upon a time, humans thought the earth was flat, or that the sun revolved around us. That never made those claims true.
To say 'a human is free to do whatever they are capable of doing, as long as it doesn’t conflict with their own interests' Not really. In truth, a human is simply free to do whatever they are capable of doing, full stop.
Cause even 'self interest' is not objective, it’s shaped by what we think we want, what we think will satisfy us or good for us, and the limits of our knowledge to know if it's true. What may looks like self interest to one person may look self destructive to another...
If you follow this idea to its conclusion, morality is simply what is objectively good for us whther we know it or not. And in pure theory, there is always an optimal set of actions that would lead to the best results, whether we know it or not. That’s what makes morality objective.
From a theist perspective, this 'optimal set' reflects divine wisdom, the principles that God embedded in us, from an atheist perspective, you could still frame it as the objective structure for human flourishing that exists independently of whether we’ve fully discovered it or not.
In both case it’s not relative, it’s out there, waiting to be understood...
sounds like fantasy.... what IS objectively good?? what are the best results?? sorry but i couldnt find any answer in your respond.
"Cause even 'self interest' is not objective" is the main point of the post, and after reading all of it i think you agree with it
-For someone who believes in God, 'objectively good' is aligned with God’s wisdom and ultimately lead to His reward, which, imo, is not some arbitrary prize but simply the real outcome of your actions.
-For an atheist, 'objectively good' is what leads to human flourishing, whether we fully discovered the formula for that or not, it exists. Just like in medicine, the right cure exists even if doctors haven’t identified it yet.
And in both cases, only when we face the outcomes of our actions we can really know...and that's why i think morality is objective.
No, morality is not, our methods of reaching it is what's subjective. Just like medicine, some use western methodes, others eastern, but the cure exists independently of how you pursue it.
The truth is out there regardless of what people say, people once said all sorts of things about the sun or the earth, but that never changed the reality.
imo humans can’t fully judge each other fairly period, because to do that you’d need full knowledge of intent, circumstances, and consequences and we simply don’t have that.
That’s why I think morality has to rest on something beyond us. But in practice, we operate based on what we can agree on, based the best knowledge we have, but that doesn’t mean that deeper truth isn’t there...
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u/spitspatratatatat dm for whore al ain Aug 27 '25
Morality is a complicated subject that I want to read more about, but the consensus seems to be, whatever harms others or yourself is considered morally wrong, and I am fine with that, we do not need religion for this which is not even really moral, it is just for the sake of avoiding punishment.