Objectivity means the absence of subjectivity, a universal standard applied to everyone equally. Gravity is an objective physical law, jump up in the air and you will come falling back down to earth.
In this context, can we say that morality is objective, is there a universal moral standard that can be identified and applied to everyone’s behavior equally? A universal standard that defines wrong and right and any deviation from it defines immorality, criminality? It wouldn’t seem so considering how many people define their moral compass by religious doctrine or by legal doctrine or by other arbitrary beliefs but let’s look at it logically anyway.
In order to discuss objective morality, we first have to agree what morality means. Let’s say that morality means the difference between wrong and right. So what does wrong and right mean? Let’s say wrong is defined by a purposeful action that imposes a cost or harm on someone else – this excludes honest human mistakes, accidents. I wanted to rob you, I meant to rob you, I robbed you, no mistake about it.
It’s the idea that your actions make someone worse off, a lower level of utility in some way than if you hadn’t done whatever you did. If you steal money from them, they are poorer, if you assault them they are physically injured etc., there is a victim.
But individual utility, a person’s well-being is subjective, it’s based on personal preferences and personal preferences are obviously not objective. Can we objectively say that everyone who has something stolen is worse off? Do we speak for them? What if someone is the kind of person that believes if someone stole from them then they must have needed it more than they did and they would have gladly given it to them if they had asked? They don’t consider themselves worse off, a victim because of the theft. In that situation, the action was not wrong or immoral because there is no victim. As a society we cannot decide on someone else’s behalf whether they are a victim or not, only they can do that. And there only has to be one person in the world who feels like that to dispel the objective theory of morality.
Therefore, victim-hood and morality doesn’t depend on the actor but on the actor’s target’s subjective valuation of the actions rendering wrong and right and morality subjective since individual valuation of everything is subjective. No two people value anything the same.
But our analysis of subjective morality actually implies something much more than that. Consider an old lady falls down in the street, is it wrong, immoral not to help her up? There is no objective response, it depends on her subjective valuation. It’s fair to assume she would prefer someone help her up and she would consider herself worse off laying in the street rather than being on the sidewalk. If your actions don’t help her then she’s worse off and her valuation of your actions is that they are wrong, immoral. But we know that is just as valid as any other valuation of the actions of others so are we to believe that morality can obligate us to act in circumstances that we have absolutely nothing to do with? Are we morally obligated to run into a burning building to save someone? Because they are definitely worse off if we don’t. If so then there’s no such thing as a hero, it would just be seen as the right thing to do. Are we obligated to give to others who have less than us since they would be worse off if we didn’t? If so then there’d be no such thing as generosity, compassion, charity, humanity it would just be seen as the right thing to do.
What are we to conclude if morality cannot be objective and if subjective morality strips us of our free-will and humanity? We have to conclude that there is no such thing as morality, there can’t be, there are just the consequences of your actions. Tough pill to swallow but true nonetheless.
What implications does this have for humanity? Historically, peaceful societies have been more economically prosperous and violent societies have been poorer. Respecting private property claims and voluntary cooperation have proven to lead to economic prosperity whereas survival of the fittest always leads to famine and suffering. But can one society be considered objectively moral and the other not? Not necessarily, all we can conclude is that the consequences of peaceful cooperation are more economically beneficial than the consequences of war. Not really a surprise is it, the answer to the question of objective morality was always staring us right in the face wasn’t it? Economic prosperity and safety is a matter of intelligence, reason, rational and peace not morality.