Is morality subjective or objective?

One mistake that is frequently made when reasoning about this issue--and it's understandably people with objectivist inclinations who usually make this mistake--is to still treat "the objective" as holding the trump card.

What I mean by that is this: a common objectivist view is that whatever is objectively the case is what we must defer to; the whole gist of the "project" in their eyes is to get objective stuff right and to go along with it.  So, they think, if it's true that morality is subjective-only, then what's objectively the case is that all moral stances are on equal footing, thus one has no grounds for preferring or enforcing one moral stance over another.

The mistake being made is this: if morality is subjective-only, then deferring to objectivity in moral matters is a category error.  It doesn't matter what's objectively the case when it comes weighing moral stances, because moral stances are not in the objective realm.  What matters is what's in the subjective realm.  It's just like when it comes to determining what marine life is in a cubic unit of ocean (at time Tx), it doesn't matter what the properties of some cubic unit of earth are in the middle of the Sahara Desert (at time Tx).  Or in other words, we need to look in the right location for the phenomena at hand.

So we make moral decisions by examining the subjective realm.  We "dig down deep" to discover how we really feel, what our preferences really are.  We challenge how we feel with difficult cases via thought experiments--that's one way to test whether we really feel the way we assumed we did, to figure out whether our moral feelings, if put into a action, are likely to have the upshots that we desire.  And when we apply our moral views to real life situations, we regularly reassess how we feel.

Real for whom?

mic, none of it is real, it is all illusion. That is the dream you have to become awake too.

If it's an illusion that's occurring inside my brain, then it's an event that has occurred in the universe. If the character of that experience (whether illusory or otherwise) has a negative quality, then that is a event which has importance, given that the conscious experience of sentient beings is the only source of value in the universe.

An example of a negative value state would be stepping on a big nail and having it driven through your foot, causing physical pain.

And we would infer that this event has negative value due to the fact that this event induces an unpleasant sensation in the mind/body of the observer. Given that the conscious experience of sentient beings is the only known source of value in the universe, it can be concluded that this event has an objectively negative value.

The observer is part of the universe, and therefore the experience is happening in the universe. It doesn't need any manifestations external to the conscious experience of the observer in order to be an objectively negative event; because the observer's consciousness is itself part of the universe and the only part of the universe from which value can be derived.

I was really using the term "objective" in the sense of not being subject to distortion from bias or prejudice; which is also a valid definition of "objective" (as in 'the BBC journalist gave an objective overview of the relevant issues').

As per Merriam Webster:




Whilst what constitutes harm may vary from one individual to the next, it is a universal truth that "harm" always has a negative value, because the definition of "harm" can only ever relate to a referent possessed of qualities deemed to be detrimental or negative.

Well I agree with that, to the extent that if somebody feels something, they are experiencing an aspect of reality.

I don't agree with the notion that the question of whether or not to have children is one that should be approached with neutrality. The fact is that when they have the children, those children will be vulnerable to harm, and their conscious experience and wellbeing is equally as important and valid as anyone else's. When the would-be parents have a yearning to have children, they are experiencing an aspect of reality - namely their own biological instincts. However, it cannot be ignored that by giving in to their base instincts, they will be imposing risk on vulnerable sentient beings, who did not have the ability to consent to that proposition. Given that it is an immutable and universal truth that "harm" is a negative value, and that conscious minds are the only source of value in the universe; they are incorrect if it is their belief that the act of having children will be beneficial to anyone other than themselves, or that they are solving any problem other than their own by doing so. And even with respect to their own problem, that could be solved by committing suicide, in which case they will not have created any new conscious beings to shoulder the burden of the parents.