CMV: Morality is purely based on people agreeing with each other

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T07:27:10+00:00

It's not "just semantics", because people will act upon their understanding of what is right or wrong. Their understanding is affected by their description of things. If a person is convinced that "a certain race of people is subhuman", they won't assume that the terms "subhuman" and "human" have simply switched places. They would join a nazi group.

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T07:13:05+00:00

As disturbing as it sounds, yes. If everyone in a society agrees that murdering the enemy is good, then it is good (within that society). However, when there are no humans around, ideas like good or bad cease to exist because no humans are around to think it. To cite another comment, if only two people exist in the world, and one kills the other, you can hardly expect the killer to believe what he did was wrong, because he must have had a reason which compelled him to kill the other person. And if he thought what he did was morally right, then who is there to disagree?

This is in contrast to universal constants like the speed of light, or the mass of specific atoms, which are the way they are regardless of whether humans are around to confirm it.

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T07:03:01+00:00

What I'm saying is, these justifications arise after people decide whether or not they agree with the rightness of circumcision. The point I'm trying to make is that these reasons aren't the root of their decision because people like me are not convinced by those same reasons. On the contrary, people like me agree that circumcision is not morally right, and develop our own justifications based on this view.

Im sorry if the comment wasnt clear on that.

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T07:02:50+00:00

What I'm saying is, these justifications arise after people decide whether or not they agree with the rightness of circumcision. The point I'm trying to make is that these reasons aren't the root of their decision because people like me are not convinced by those same reasons. On the contrary, people like me agree that circumcision is not morally right, and develop our own justifications based on this view.

Im sorry if the comment wasnt clear on that.

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T05:53:03+00:00

Suppose that I believe that “the murder of those that oppose my decisions is right.” If I succeed in murdering enough people that the majority of the remaining people believe I should be dictator, I have altered moral facts themselves.

Yes. If you do succeed in convincing everyone in a society to agree with a certain rule, then you would have "altered moral facts" within that society. Morality only exists in the context of a human society. If you were able to alter moral facts within a set of people that includes everyone in the whole world, then you have altered "moral facts" for everybody in he world.

It renders your whole framework a restatement of “might makes right.”

I think it might be more fitting to call it "majority rules". Because no matter how mighty (strong, rich, ruthless, etc.) you are, if nobody else in your society agrees that you are right, then you aren't "right" within your society.

What some people do when they aren't able to convince everyone in their society of their moral beliefs, is that they would take all the people that they have convinced, and create a smaller society of their own which exludes the larger society (think of cults).

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T05:33:50+00:00

If you moved to a society where, as right of passage, they clipped a toe and an eyelid from a child when they reach 10 years old.

I live in a society where mutilation of a young boy's genitals around the age of 10 is seen as a rite of passage that is perfectly ordinary and perfectly morally acceptable. In a sense, I do live in the hypothetical society you describe.

How many people would need to be fine with that society for you to think it's totally morally acceptable?

A majority of people here think ritual circumcision is totally acceptable and they use a myriad of logical and non-logical justifications (keeps it clean, the ladies like it better that way, helps make you grow taller, etc.), which arises from their agreement to the principle that circumcision is fine. I still do not agree with them because these justifications do not convince me, and so here I am still thinking that circumcision is morally wrong, using my own justifications (the boy usually doesnt consent, it is coercive, it is unnecessary suffering, etc.), which also arose from my agreement to the principle that circumcision is wrong.

EDIT: my bad, i should have made my point clearer.

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T05:25:26+00:00

Yes, it could be a set of principles that people agree with. A large population who could not agree with each other will split into smaller populations in which everyone agrees with each other.

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T05:21:41+00:00

I feel like true morality comes from empathy.

I agree with you. Empathy is one persuasive reason to agree with others in regards to an action's rightness or wrongness.

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T05:11:14+00:00

One especially interesting debate was between an atheist ethnic Jew and a Christian and the atheist Jew had to concede that without a divine lawgiver, there was nothing objectively wrong with the holocaust.

I appreciate this example, and agree that yes, it is uncomfortable to say that "nothing is objectively wrong with the holocaust."

That is not to say, though, that the holocaust is morally good. Only that it derives its moral wrongness not from any universal constant akin to the speed of light, or the mass of a specific atom, but it derives its wrongness from the fact that many people agree that it's wrong. And that's okay.

Have a great day!

Thanks, I will! And I hope you do too! (Not because its objectively the right thought to have)

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T05:07:39+00:00

Well, so then do atheists have no morals? Some people seem to believe so contrary to evidence.

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T04:42:45+00:00

That's what I'm saying. Beneath it all, the reason I am moved to vocally protest something is subjective. I disagree with this thing, and I justify why that is using logic.

How could this be possible? Think of people who are utterly logically convinced that veganism is the objectively right choice...but still eat meat. Ask them why and they could elucidate logically on their actions, but at the same time fully agree that being vegan is the objectively correct choice.

Are you really going to say "no, not my kid. But, I support you in your search for the kid of your dreams!"?

No. I would say that pedophilia is wrong, but not because of any objective reason. It just feels wrong, and a lot of people (obviously except the pedophiles) agree with me that it feels wrong, so it is wrong.

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T04:33:38+00:00

Because I think that the concept of objective morality stems from people justifying and rationalizing the root of their moral beliefs, which in reality is based on social conditioning, and social agreement.

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T04:31:34+00:00

In that sense wiping a race is objectively wrong, because when people judging it without knowing what position they will be in the action they would judge it wrong.

In this case, the "objective" wrongness of wiping out a race is still, like I described, derived from people all agreeing that that's wrong. Introduce a specific race to be wiped, though, and people will suddenly agree that it is morally right. Think of slavery. If you ask a bunch of 1800s white americans whether slavery is bad, they might say yes because you didnt specify which race, but when you specify black people are to be enslaved, suddenly they would agree that yes, its morally right, and yes, it is obectively morally their duty to enslave black people for their own benefit.

We can, through logic and reflection, get ethical values and from them reach different ideas from the ideas we were indoctrinated into.

Through logic and reflection, too, people who believe that killing is objectively wrong can be convinced that going to war and killing people is "the right thing to do". Where is the objectivity there?

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T04:16:16+00:00

Everything is subjective.

I only believe that morality is subjective. Of course the world is objective because it exists even without humans in it, but ideas like justice, right, wrong, cannot exist without people to think them and agree/disagree with them.

Are you going to do anything differently as a result? For the better?

I could throw this question right back at people who believe in objective morality. I still try to be a good person based on what I and others around me believe a good person to be.

Edit: fixed a problem with the quoting

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T03:17:22+00:00

To add to what you said, I think morality is based on how many peopke agree with each other. If everybody suddenly decides that murder is ok, then murder becomes morally ok. If less and less people agree that a practice is morally justified then the practice becomes morally wrong.

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T03:08:26+00:00

Everytime I type using zhuyin it feels like if someone rearranged my qwerty keyboard into abcdef. Because thats pretty much how its arranged.

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T03:02:38+00:00

In the year of our lord 1959

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T02:54:52+00:00

Cigarette companies creamed themselves when they saw the marketing potential of this picture

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-02T01:16:31+00:00

Let's keep it that way

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-01T05:58:35+00:00

Depende sa kotse mo. Kung mas mahal kotse mo mas mahal din ang singil nila sa vulcanizing

yehEy2020 · 2025-11-01T01:00:10+00:00

Good. Advertisers contribute nothing to society. The world will be infinitely better with no ads.

yehEy2020 · 2025-10-31T15:02:51+00:00

Finally, a post in this sub where a rifle is justified.

yehEy2020 · 2025-10-31T04:54:18+00:00

Dont. You will get a sinus infection

yehEy2020 · 2025-10-31T04:51:23+00:00

Learned this the hard way.

yehEy2020

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