Moral objectivism

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Moral objectivism or moderate moral realism is the position that certain acts are objectively right or wrong, independent of human opinion. According to Richard Boyd, moral realism means that:

1. Moral statements are the sorts of statements which are (or which express propositions which are) true or false (or approximately true, largely false, etc.);
2. The truth or falsity (approximate truth...) of moral statements is largely independent of our moral opinions, theories, etc.;
3. Ordinary canons of moral reasoning—together with ordinary canons of scientific and everyday factual reasoning—constitute, under many circumstances at least, a reliable method for obtaining and improving (approximate) moral knowledge.^[1]

According to R. W Hepburn,^[2] to adopt objectivism is

to argue that moral judgements can be rationally defensible, true or false, that there are rational procedural tests for identifying morally impermissible actions, or that moral values exist independently of the feeling-states of individuals at particular times.

Models of objective morality may be atheistic, deistic (in the case of Enlightenment philosophers), monotheistic (in the case of the Abrahamic religions), or polytheistic (in the case of Hinduism). The moral codes may stem from reason, from the divine, or from a combination of the two. These various systems differ on the meta-ethical question of the nature of the objective morality, but agree on its existence. It is this diversity between existing codes of objective morality, and the continued debates over the meta-ethical justification of morality, that lead some to reject the concept entirely, in favour of ethical subjectivism or other forms of moral relativism.

Advocates of objective morality have proposed a number of means to bridge the gap between the objective and subjective. Others dismiss the need to do so altogether due to the allowance of objectivity from relativistic opposition.

[edit] See also

• Ethics
• Moral naturalism
• Moral realism
• Moral relativism
• Morality
• Universality (philosophy)

[edit] References

• Zigliara, "Sum. phil." (3 vols., Paris, 1889), ccx, xi, II, M. 23, 24, 25)

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Boyd, Richard N. (1988), "How to Be a Moral Realist", in Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey, Essays on Moral Realism, Cornell University Press, 181–228, ISBN 0-8014-2240-X
2. ^ The Oxford Companion to Philosophy