I’d comment briefly on such a crucial and fundamental question by saying that we are not to forget that In a communication society such as ours, a general ‘consensus’ can even reach the status of a moral value that may be modeled and addressed as it is more convenient. This entails a kind of metaphorical laying down of arms to the common stream of thinking, being persuaded that it is the less painful way for a peaceful civil coexistence. In addition, it may exempt each of us from the burden of being critical and engaged in a sort of confrontation with the common depraved behaviors. As a result, an efficient and cunning propaganda maneuver puts the seal of being a moral value to claims of power of any kind. All that amounts to adhering to a relativistic conception, whereby the meaning and interpretation of human rights could vary and their universality be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious beliefs. In more detail, I have in mind that particular significance having its place in the ‘extreme’ conceptual position that relativism assumes so that everyone claims to be the law for himself and considers only the ‘self’ as the ultimate criterion rendering the individual conscience an absolute value. Then, a personal path of moral development is sorted out thus creating an extensive variety of ‘modus operandi’ and alternatives that have as their sole limit the minimum mutual respect. Somehow, it reminds me of the “radical impossibility – as Popper says – to know anything in its objectivity”.

All that induces me to believe that moral values should not be invented but only discovered because they are objective, namely truths that should be universally considered unquestionable and non-negotiable. By believing that an objective morality exists in the human being and that it should possess a solid logical rationale it is necessary that it goes "beyond self”. It must appeal to an Entity who introduced these moral laws in man; in a nutshell, we are all equal. Instead, those who insist that there is something "always right or always wrong," are simply irrational. In this respect, I’d quote a noted Italian philosopher and laicist, Norberto Bobbio, who said:” The rational morality that we laicists propose is the only one we have, but in reality it is unreasonable”.

Being objective is not necessarily to be oppressive, arrogant or authoritarian. My point is that we should bear in mind that there are many traditions that affirm how trans-cultural universal moral conducts are required by the nature itself of the human being: they express the way by which an individual enters into a creative and harmonious order that goes beyond him and gives meaning to his life.

Following Ronald Davidson (see R. Davidson, “Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001”), I present the possibility of considering the presence and operation of ‘inter-subjectivity’ which is at the root of objectivity having as its base the sharing of subjective states by two or more persons. It is an alternative type of objectivity, not because what people think is necessarily true, but because they agree on the meanings and the definition of a situation. Thought, in fact, exerts from the beginning its power to connect with the real world and with others. Only when we can get an idea of what is passing through the mind of other people we could say we have the concept of objectivity, that is, something existing in the world independently of us. I think that it will be a subject for further discussion.

Maybe neither - or both. Maybe it would be more perspicuous to see them as endorsed, that is, as ways in which we can better accomplish certain ( shared, social) project . Think of a people who tried to have a society without endorsing certain values such as telling the truth, or being just. Think of parents trying to raise kids without endorsing such values. It would be really difficult (if not impossible) to carry out such projects. People may enact certain values - or realize they do. But saying that they "invented" or "discovered" them sounds inadequate to me, in the same sense that nobody "invented" nor "discovered" parenthood, or raising kids (or making friends, or going to war, or any other practice in which we enact certain values). We could enact/realize (as opposed to invent/discover) that we've been raising kids, or even orchestrating wars in preferable ways (i.e., according to certain values).

Aha! This is interesting. On the other thread you were trying to persuade us that "objective moral values" could exist, and be discovered, and I argued strongly that "OMV" is not a coherent concept since value must be personal (that is, subjective).

But now you come from the other direction and ask if morals are discovered or invented. To which I reply that they must be discovered since were they merely invented they would be no more than a solipsistic illusion.

So then, asking the question one way you get the response that value is subjective, but asking the question the other way elicits the response that they are objective! How do I extricate myself from this hole?

The fact is, we are social creatures - we are nothing without society - but we are also responsible moral agents as individuals. The way you ask the question affects whether we answer in our social or individual capacities. The OMV question asks whether societies must acknowledge certain values, but this question asks the individual whether a man's ethic (rules of social interaction) are his to choose. (I use "man" in the gender-neutral sense.)

I think the OMV question is asked in the wrong terms. You can't really get over the relativist problem by appealing to absolutes because the absolutes simply are not there - value is ultimately personal and not accessible to absolute (complete) definition. But societies can be persuaded to change their ethic, not because OMVs exist, but because some ethics are better than others. I am thinking of Augustine of Canterbury's extraordinary persuasiveness of King Æthelberht of Kent, and of course there are many other examples.

Coming to the present question, it is the other way round. We cannot create our own ethic, ex nihilo as it were, because "none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone" (Rom.14:7), as Paul of Tarsus observed around 50 AD.

We imbibe our ethics with our mother's milk, and when we attain responsibility we criticise and adjust our ethics, in conjunction with our friends. Ethics are negotiated. They are always negotiated.

I’d comment briefly on such a crucial and fundamental question by saying that we are not to forget that In a communication society such as ours, a general ‘consensus’ can even reach the status of a moral value that may be modeled and addressed as it is more convenient. This entails a kind of metaphorical laying down of arms to the common stream of thinking, being persuaded that it is the less painful way for a peaceful civil coexistence. In addition, it may exempt each of us from the burden of being critical and engaged in a sort of confrontation with the common depraved behaviors. As a result, an efficient and cunning propaganda maneuver puts the seal of being a moral value to claims of power of any kind. All that amounts to adhering to a relativistic conception, whereby the meaning and interpretation of human rights could vary and their universality be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious beliefs. In more detail, I have in mind that particular significance having its place in the ‘extreme’ conceptual position that relativism assumes so that everyone claims to be the law for himself and considers only the ‘self’ as the ultimate criterion rendering the individual conscience an absolute value. Then, a personal path of moral development is sorted out thus creating an extensive variety of ‘modus operandi’ and alternatives that have as their sole limit the minimum mutual respect. Somehow, it reminds me of the “radical impossibility – as Popper says – to know anything in its objectivity”.

All that induces me to believe that moral values should not be invented but only discovered because they are objective, namely truths that should be universally considered unquestionable and non-negotiable. By believing that an objective morality exists in the human being and that it should possess a solid logical rationale it is necessary that it goes "beyond self”. It must appeal to an Entity who introduced these moral laws in man; in a nutshell, we are all equal. Instead, those who insist that there is something "always right or always wrong," are simply irrational. In this respect, I’d quote a noted Italian philosopher and laicist, Norberto Bobbio, who said:” The rational morality that we laicists propose is the only one we have, but in reality it is unreasonable”.

Being objective is not necessarily to be oppressive, arrogant or authoritarian. My point is that we should bear in mind that there are many traditions that affirm how trans-cultural universal moral conducts are required by the nature itself of the human being: they express the way by which an individual enters into a creative and harmonious order that goes beyond him and gives meaning to his life.

Following Ronald Davidson (see R. Davidson, “Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001”), I present the possibility of considering the presence and operation of ‘inter-subjectivity’ which is at the root of objectivity having as its base the sharing of subjective states by two or more persons. It is an alternative type of objectivity, not because what people think is necessarily true, but because they agree on the meanings and the definition of a situation. Thought, in fact, exerts from the beginning its power to connect with the real world and with others. Only when we can get an idea of what is passing through the mind of other people we could say we have the concept of objectivity, that is, something existing in the world independently of us. I think that it will be a subject for further discussion.

Wow Gianrocco - you surely can "turn a phrase". I am assuming that you must be a writer. You have some powerful and thought-provoking statements here: "This entails a kind of metaphorical laying down of arms to the common stream of thinking, being persuaded that it is the less painful way for a peaceful civil coexistence." I wish I'd said that. You speak here of "claims of power" but almost from the opposite perspective from that of Foucault. This statement is especially thought-provoking: "All that amounts to adhering to a relativistic conception, whereby the meaning and interpretation of human rights could vary and their universality be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious beliefs." Did you have particular groups or situations in your crosshairs when you said that, or were you saying it generally? What follows that statement is a description of Subjective Relativism ("The good is whatever I believe it to be."), but your perception of it seems to be as a society-wide phenomenon. Do you really hold that our societies are largely comprised of subjective relativists? If so, I will have to mull that over in my mind. If you are right about that it has some strong implications regarding the social contract.

You have yet another phrase that I wish I'd said: "...there are many traditions that affirm how trans-cultural universal moral conducts are required by the nature itself of the human being: they express the way by which an individual enters into a creative and harmonious order that goes beyond him and gives meaning to his life." This is true, and such traditions are often sneered at in academia today, but they are amongst those that gave us some of the most appreciated aspects of our contemporary world.

I have ordered Donald Davidson's book. I want to read more about inter-subjectivity. Thank you for this posting.

As an aged non-English speaking “Independent Researcher”, I find your phrase: “……..I will have to “mull over in my mind” [whether] “our societies are largely comprised of subjective relativists” quite a felicitous and well-chosen expression of knowledge and mastery of the demanding question you raised. Even though I am waiting for my pathological ruminations to produce something meaningful, I can only say that pre-modern societies were founded on an ultimate reference “objectively” constituted – for example - a civil authority. According to the Hobbesian ‘auctoritas non veritas facit legem’ (Leviathan, ch. XXVI), the Authority acted in our place, representing us in our rational decision to live in peace according to the pacts. In the so-called “secular city”, instead, any individual turns out to be the pin around which ethics revolves according to a subjective perspective. It is the apotheosis of the ethical subjectivism in line with the Cartesian dictum: “Cogito, ergo sum” that generated the individual relativism, which does not have effects only in theory but also in practice. In fact, there is an incentive for each person to develop its ethical model in complete autonomy, choosing from an imaginary 'menu' his/her own preferences. The result was an unlimited pluralism or an extensive variety of pathways and alternatives that was constrained – as I said in my previous comment – only by a minimum of mutual respect without any concern for comparison.

Now, as a layman, it seems to me to hint the ‘prototype’ of an individual who strives persistently to find an objective sense of things, while remaining every time with a self-contained and private sense of reality, inevitably non-objective and at most to be shared with other.

Post-modernity appears to be marked by the paradox of a progression of a dual form of reality: secularization and devotion, practical atheism and religious proxies, in a pluralistic society in search of an ethics whose values are accepted by those who claim to be ‘absolute different’ and those who render absolute what is relative.

I think moral values are invented by societies and some of the core values have chance to become globally popular.

I participated here on RG on many dialogue trying to determine wheter mathematics is discovered or invented and came to the conclusion that whatever is invented is discoved to be already there in the outer world and in the cognitive world doing the discovery/invention. Every so called new ideas I ever had came about by recognition of a certain patterns into other ideas or phenomena. Every time, a bit of litterature review led me to realize that the idea had a long ancestry in philosophy and science and only a small part of it was original to me. I do not think that the invention/discovery of moral values is different.

Morality has to come from within; it can not be imposed. What is moral for someone, may be immoral for someone else. Accordingly, moral science is not science! There can not be a scientific explanation why something should be moral.

I thought that there had been some success at explaining what we might call moral behaviours by proponents of social evolution theories. If so, then John's points are valid and morals are discovered because evolution has already invented them. That is, unless you regard the language of morality as separate. In that case the language of morals was invented to explain the discovery of moral behaviour.

Moral laws are invented exactly like traffic rules. Their nature is regulatory not constitutve. Even "divine" rules, imposed by religion will eventually be reformed if they outlive their "practical" (in Kant's sense) significance  of harmonizing social interactions. Also scientific laws are invented and "survive" until contradicted by experimental evidence. 

Harry,

They are invented and are regulatory but sometime also constitutive. The religious of the Jews was invented, regulatory and constitutive. There would not be a jewish people today if not their contitutive religion.  

Query: If moral laws are invented only, how is it that certain things seem inconceivable as morally good? For instance why is there no society where cowardice in battle, breaking oaths, having sex with children, or betraying the trust of friends and family has been advocated and approved of? What gives weight to the idea of bedrock evil or bedrock good? Atheists like Kai Nielsen and Raimond Gaita will acknowledge that certain behaviors or actions are always and everywhere evil. How did we (humankind) mange to invent transcultural moral values? 

Bill,

There are plenty of societies that for a while advocated such societal suicidal beliefs and got extinct.  Not moral tradition are entirely 100% good but the overall mixture will determine how successfull that society will be.  This is social natural selection.  Most traditions that were invented had very short life, the enduring one have to have something good about it otherwise they would not have endured.  Their endurance is their proof of livability although they are a mixture and in that mixture many aspects will have to go, cease to be life promoting, and new one will have to be organically incorporated.  Bedrock evil is what undermine the core of the social construction and bedrock good is what is building the core of the social.  Atheism is also a mixture of which some comes is socially good and are secularisation of religious socially build values and with some other are socially destructive because being against the very process of creating the new social, against creativity in general: the subsumption of the creative imaginatory root life relation by  intellectually rooted  object relations.  Vico called it the barbarism of the intellect which is an attitude of trying to subsume life/creation to object relation, to replace socially life promoting  rewards by socially deadening rewards/money/power.

‘’One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them. One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.  In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.’’

''MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains/debt''.

Moral values are discovered, as they are related with the possibility of selftrascendence in human beings. They are an expression and the consequence of self conscience. Self conscience supposes spirituality, a dimension in ourselves previous to our intention and determination. I suggest Bernard Lonergan "Insight".

Moral values are discovered, as they are related with the possibility of selftrascendence in human beings. They are an expression and the consequence of self conscience. Self conscience supposes spirituality, a dimension in ourselves previous to our intention and determination. I suggest Bernard Lonergan "Insight". I also add a text in spanish of my own. 

Article La transformación del imaginario simbólico

Moral values are discovered, as they are related with the possibility of selftrascendence in human beings. They are an expression and the consequence of self conscience. Self conscience supposes spirituality, a dimension in ourselves previous to our intention and determination. I suggest Bernard Lonergan "Insight". In Cristian field, Karl Rahner "Höerer das Wortes" and  Luiggi Rulla "Antropology of Christian vocation" (Athenas, Madrid, 1990). I also add a text in spanish of my own. 

Article La transformación del imaginario simbólico

Moral values are discovered, as they are related with the possibility of selftrascendence in human beings. They are an expression and the consequence of anthropological self conscience. Self conscience supposes spirituality, a dimension in ourselves previous to our intention and moral determination. I suggest the following readings: 1) Bernard Lonergan "Insight". In Cristian field, 2) Karl Rahner "Höerer das Wortes" and  3) Luiggi Rulla, "Antropology of Christian vocation", Athenas, Madrid, 1990. I also add a text in spanish of my own. 

Article La transformación del imaginario simbólico

Moral values are discovered, as they are related with the possibility of selftrascendence in human beings. They are an expression and the consequence of anthropological self conscience. Self conscience supposes spirituality, a dimension in ourselves previous to our intention and moral determination. I suggest the following readings: 1) Bernard Lonergan "Insight". In Cristian field, 2) Karl Rahner "Höerer das Wortes" and 3) Luiggi Rulla, "Antropology of Christian vocation", Athenas, Madrid, 1990. I also add a text in spanish of my own.

Article La transformación del imaginario simbólico

Hello Louis, You and I have spoken in the past and I respect your thought, but I don't really believe that you can claim with any degree of credibility that there have been societies (now extinct) where  cowardice in battle, breaking oaths, having sex with children, or betraying the trust of friends and family have been thought of as moral goods. It is self evident that there cannot have been such societies. Try to conceptualize what such a society would look like. It would unravel before it ever began. I;m not sure of the pertinence of Tolkien or Rousseau to this issue. No one has ever seen a noble savage of the sort Rousseau conceptualized, and there are no Valar (Morgoth) or Maia (Sauron) against which we think we fight. We believe in the secular West that our battle is only against flesh and blood. What flesh and blood society could ever conceive of these transcultural evils being good or praiseworthy? The answer is none. 

Did we invent these transcultural goods and bads, or are they part of the nature of the universe which we find to be here before us? I think we discover these things to be good or evil. If we try to call the good bad or the bad good we will impale ourselves on reality.

Bill,

There is an incomprehension gap here.  I do not know if that can be breached but I may try to fill some of the gap tomorrow.  What is certain is that I lost you entirely.  It does not mean that if you would understand what I meant to say then you would agree but you did not get my meaning at all. This is a sign that our vision of reality is very far apart.

Regards

Louis,

I'm sorry my friend. I did not mean to misinterpret what you intended to say. There is, as you say, some sort of a gap of understanding. I remember past conversations with you, and know that I hold your opinions in high regard. 

Best Wishes,

Bill

Bill,

Humans are not born with a genetically encoded morality.  It is a produced by the social and the young are enculturated into the societal customs. And how did societies got their customs, cultures?  They had to invent them.  So each societies is like an living organism and so subject to process of selection.  Those societies which adopt cultures which favor their survival will prosper and those that adopt that adopt cultures that do not favor their survival will not prosper.  So there are certain moral values that are shared by most societies because the societies that did not hold them got extinct rather quickly.

Do we agree with this part?

Then you spoke about bedrock good, bedrock evil and atheism.

What is good has to be situated relative to a given society and I define it as what is culturally sustain and promote this society.  And the bad is what culturally undermine and destroy this society. 

The gradual increase in the control of the social interaction by money is currently undermining most societies.  On that you may refer to ''Theology of Money'' by Philip Goodchild.  I totally agree with him.  My two quotes refer to the power money has on each of us.  THe ring of power is mony.  Sauron is the lord of the ring.  And the chains Rousseau was talking about are mostly moneytary chain in the form of debts.  Since the foundation of the bank of England, money creation is equivalent to debt creation.  Money is THE VALUE replacing ALL VALUES and it is totally EMPTY.

Regards

.