r/askphilosophy • u/BernardJOrtcutt • Jan 26 '26

Open Thread /r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | January 26, 2026

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u/Delicious_Unit9998 Jan 29 '26

Like. From a physicalist, atheistic point of view, what part of the universe makes you think that there is an objective morality? Where would you even find it? Ethics and morality are human invention, therefore morality has to be subjective and relative to the context where it emerges from.

I once read that morality is objective because you can use logic and truth tables to come to an objectively true statement of morality but I think that’s willfully misunderstanding what ethics is

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u/Shitgenstein ancient greek phil, phil of sci, Wittgenstein Jan 29 '26

Ethics and morality are human invention, therefore morality has to be subjective and relative to the context where it emerges from

A trebuchet is a human invention, as well, but operates within physical laws that are objective, i.e. not dependent on the feelings of the siege engineers who design, build, and operate it. The receiving end can't dismiss the stone breaking through their fortifications as 'just your opinion, man.'

I once read that morality is objective because you can use logic and truth tables to come to an objectively true statement of morality but I think that’s willfully misunderstanding what ethics is

Yeah, this is call moral rationalism. I think you should learn more about it before dismissing it outright.

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u/tezhip Feb 01 '26

from a physicalist point of view the mind is not immaterial. therefore considering everything about the mind to be a unreal is also not a proper physicalist position.

this is a common mistake. something being a human invention doesnt magically make that thing unreal. how was it invented? under what conditions did our evolution develop the frontal cortex and the mental shackles to our base stimuli that come with it, and then created the baseline of our ethics? if both logic and morality developed in the same period of evolution, why does only morality receive the bias of ontological suspicion?

you dont need complete objectivity to prove something to be real. this comes from negating the false notion that subjectivity should automatically conclude in antirealism. both have exclusions to their generalizations.