If we attempt to understand morality by taking our subjective and contemporary idea of good- ex. slavery is wrong, and judge moral systems by that, then we do not believe that morality is outside of humanity. We believe that nothing is greater than our power of reasoning. But our power of reasoning is easily corruptible by rationalization and bias.
When I sent you the link to the attempt to redefine Pi, I had expected you to read the article. Had you done so, you would have seen that it wasn't a single foolish politician, but rather an entire befuddled house of legislature, confronted by a foolish mathematician's attempt to collect royalties on an idiotic article in which he proposed a new and incorrect way to compute the constant. The attempt failed when an actual mathematician had a chance to read the bill.
Your point about the inability of human beings to redefine reality is well-taken, of course, but I didn't get the impression that your collocutor was trying to do that; rather, he is running into the struggle I think you are trying to point out, about how to understand and define morality. I also believe that you have made it harder to understand here and in previous articles, where you have cited mathematical and physical truths as exemplars of the idea you are proposing - of verifiable reality.
The difference is that those things are observable; the definition of morality is not. Morality does not declare something to be of a particular weight or size - it is inherently a value judgment. The difference that I think you should be arguing is relative morality vs. absolute morality. Relative morality is the opinion of human beings, and especially a human consensus. In this is very much resembles ideas like pineapple pizza: most people are horrified, but their main argument seems to be one of preference, and their main tactic is shaming dissenters.
Absolute morality, on the other hand, has several essential elements which distinguish it from relative morality. It is still necessarily a value judgment, but in this case it is the judgment of an Absolute Moralist, who must be unique (so that there can only be one such morality), eternal (so that this morality does not change over time), omnipresent (so that the rules of morality do not change with location), and omnipotent (so that the Absolute Moralist can enforce His definition). That is why absolute morality must be judgment of G-d, who meets those characteristics.
That does not, however, prove that human beings must be aware of it. They can only achieve this awareness through revelation from G-d, and there is where we run into problems. Not only do different faiths claim different revelations, within faiths, it is possible for people to disagree on interpretation, and often not to recognize that significant parts of the morality they think is from G-d is actually full of human accretion.
And that makes it doubly difficult for an unbeliever, as Fallible Father has recently declared himself to be. If absolute morality is a decree of G-d, and you don't believe in G-d,... how are you supposed to recognize the validity of these claims for morality?
Certainly, one approach might be to analyze each moral claim from a tradition, and try to understand why it is good, and why it is not. That's the approach he seems to be attempting, and it is at least a lot better than many unbelievers use.
The question, then, is what your goal might be, if there is one beyond a fun debate. I'm really not sure of the efficacy of repeating your own belief in the Christian deity, beyond its presumed familiarity to Fallible Father - who might retain some connection thereto, despite his doubts.
And some of the moral questions are not trivial. For example, I think we all agree that slavery is wrong - and yet the Bible never condemns it. Instead, it surrounds it with certain restrictions on slaveowners (regularly ignored by US slave owners, who claimed the Bible as their rationale). It's an interesting question, and one to which I have given some thought, but without any clear source for Divine guidance.
Great comments, Russ! I will reply in several comments of myself, to keep the issues easier to see and reply to. My replies will be in the general thread, not under this one.
This is the first time I have read the comments on this, and this is an insightful one. When I have a little more time, I am going to come back to this.
>>When I sent you the link to the attempt to redefine Pi, I had expected you to read the article.
1) When you sent me that post I did read it. In my post I was talking about a story ‘I heard’ at some point in my life; not the story you posted. It is quite possible that the story I heard was a devolution of the story you linked to, and it is possible that there are two people (groups) who tried legislating the value of pi. The story that I heard fit the point I was trying to make better, thus I used it (and linked to yours). I was making a logical argument, not a history lesson :)
>>Your point about the inability of human beings to redefine reality is well-taken, of course, but I didn't get the impression that your collocutor was trying to do that rather, he is running into the struggle I think you are trying to point out, about how to understand and define morality.
I very much do get the impression he is trying to do that. I believe that when you include ‘honour your father’ as a questionable part of morality, you are, almost by definition, trying to redefine morality… which is part of reality.
You leave him two choices, IMO, one of which makes no sense. Is he saying, “Was and is pretty much all of humanity right when they claimed that ‘honour your father’ was an indispensable and key moral precept? Or can I do better??” or is he trying to redefine morality? Is he really saying, “My own human reason is superior to the combined reasoning, understanding, and intellect of the human race throughout history?” That seems pretty arrogant.
I would prefer to believe he is attempting to redefine morality, as the Supreme Court (and others) have attempted to redefine marriage.
>>The difference is that those things are observable; the definition of morality is not. Morality does not declare something to be of a particular weight or size - it is inherently a value judgment.
Here is where we disagree. Indeed I think it might be worth an entire post, but I will start with a comment:
a) The question isn’t one of definition, but of measurement. Thus your sentence should read something like, “The difference between morality and mathematical and physical truth is that the latter are observable…”. The definition of a mathematical truth isn’t observable either, unless your write it down.
b) It is not actually true that all mathematical and physical truths are observable. Many of them can only be inferred by their action on other things.
c) Like many mathematical and physical truths, morality is very complex. If you were to ask the question ‘How fast can gravity travel’ you would find the answer bizarre. To the best of my (very limited) understanding gravity travels as fast as light, but has effects which travel faster.
d) Like many mathematical and physical truths, morality is very complex. Thus there can be no direct and complete measurement of any particular cause and effect. If I say that ‘honour your father’ is a measurable moral truth, if I claim that a society which honours its father will produce such and such results, and one which doesn’t will produce these other effects; the problem in measuring is not that there is nothing to be measured, but that there is too much. What are all the aspects of honouring one’s father, who holds which of them to which extent? Some of them are external, some are internal.
And the results are equally complex. As are the confounding factors. What of a society that does pretty good at honouring the father, but is really bad at the whole ‘do not covet’ thing?
Weather is pretty physical. But it can be very difficult to predict. Because while it might be true that such and such conditions will produce such and such an effect; ‘such and such’ covers a multitude of sins! IOW ther are a gazillion (that might be an underestimate) of conditions that produce a gazillion effects, and the effects themselves go to make up the conditions! The rain that is falling affects the rain that will fall! And the damp ground, and the cold wind, etc etc.
e) The actions of God are known to be unknown. He does not choose to annihilate every city that has a problem with Sodomy.
I think this hints at a difference in assumptions or possibly language.
How do you understand the term "observable" in this case? I would say, for example, that mathematical truths are absolutely observable, and do not require being written down. Observable doesn't simply mean "see with your eyes." It simply means that you have an objective way to test that they are true. That includes indirect measurement; indeed much of science uses indirect measurement. For example, we generally test whether something is acidic or alkaline by immersing it in litmus paper, not by looking directly at the concentration of ions.
What objective measures would you propose for determining whether it is immoral not to honor your father?
>>The difference that I think you should be arguing is relative morality vs. absolute morality.
I am, except I don’t use those words, because I think they are not only confusing but actively unhelpful. I have used the following words:
a) Preference. One person, or even one culture, deciding that he likes a given behaviour, so it teaches it and practices it (to whatever extent). While being clear they do not claim that this behaviour is and should be mandatory on all humans everywhere.
b) Game Rules. A group of people setting up rules that they agree to live with. Like soccer, or the social contract theory. Again, they are not saying that these rules should be for everyone everywhere, just amongst themselves. There is a variety of conservative that claims this as their theory (sort of).
The problem with (b) is that includes elements of actual morality. If you agree to their rules, but don’t follow them, then they do stray into what you call ‘absolute morality’. IE you can pick your rules, but once picked you have to follow them.
So my point is that there is morality, and then there is everything else. Fiat law, game theory, habit, tradition, preference, house rules, and game rules. And I am lumping most of them into ‘Pizza and Sushi’, and putting what you call ‘Absolute Morality’ into its own slot. And calling it morality tout simple.
The idea of absolute morality is that it is universal and permanent. If you agree to game rules and violate them, what basis is there for saying that you have acted objectively immorally? That it contains elements of absolute morality?
Let me see if I can make it more clear. In any game, there are things that are violations of the rules, but that are considered a perfectly ordinary part of playing the game. The kind of things for which you might get a flag thrown on you in Football.
And then there are the other kind of things which would get you banned for life. The kind of things that would be called cheating.
I am arguing that that second kind of thing can only come from objective morality. If not, you end up with an infinite recursion. You ask the person do you agree to abide by the rules of the game? But then you would have to ask them do you agree to abide by your agreement to abide by the rules of the game? And then you’d have to ask them..
In the end, we get mad at cheaters and we react so strongly to them because they violated the objective morality.
Yes, you are arguing for it, but you are not offer support for your argument.
What you are calling objective morality is simply that of a particular society. There is no reason to believe that it is universal; rather, it is learned via experience.
I recall reading of a number of people in one culture in a doctor's waiting room, wiling away the time by trying to solve the Rubic's cube, with no success. A member of a different culture took the cube, disassembled it, and showed that he had solved it that way. In his culture, following the game rules made no sense if it made it hard to succeed.
Similarly, "high society" often has rules that all members of that group understand and follow, which sound artificial to outsiders.
And, of course, we have that very famous example of Alexander and the Gordian knot, in which he explicitly ignored the rules that everyone else was following, viewing them as meaningless.
>>That does not, however, prove that human beings must be aware of it.
Well, one of the starting points of our discussion, I would argue, is that we are aware of it. CS Lewis, in his book ‘Mere Christianity’ makes that his opening point: we all act as if there was some sort of overarching rules that we are all supposed to be following, and get mad at each other for not following them (or not following them as we think they are supposed to follow them).
To break into modern politics, when people consider the actions of Israel or Hamas, they are not saying “Well, they have different rules than I like to live under.” They are using words, such as ‘genocide’ or ‘terrorism’, which they expect their readers to agree are bad, however much they might disagree as to the exact definition and how it works out in the current conflict.
So I would argue that the idea that all humans understand that they live in the shadow of a moral code, however defined and disagreed on, is a basic premise that needs no arguing. Indeed one of my challenges to @Fallible is whether he is willing to deny this: to reduce all of his understandings to mere preference or game theory. If he is willing to say ‘To Hell with your idea that there are moral rules which bind my actions,” then I think we would be having another conversation. (Capitalised word used intentionally, and capitalised intentionally.)
The basis for arguments over Israel vs. Hamas are generally founded in the Hague Convention of 1907, as augmented by the Geneva convention, which the signatories consider to be binding world-wide. Most people, though, don't know what these conventions actually say, and tend to react based on ideas popular among their friends.
And that is the way most people live. They believe that there is a code, which they have learned from their society. That works fairly well when the society is homogeneous; when it is not, you have different people choosing to follow different ideas of morality; any similarity between what they do and what G-d may have decreed is often coincidental.
I don’t think that’s even close to reasonable. I read an article today. The headline of which actually I didn’t read the article. I just read the headline was that Moss terrorist had executed some of their women prisoners by shooting them in the genitals and the breasts.
I doubt one person in a gazillion said huh. I bet that is against some convention somewhere or at the very least it’s against the way my society has taught us We should all live together in a kind and friendly and homogenous way.
What would that rule even look like? Thou shout not execute your women in prisoners by shooting them in the genitals?
No, what’s going on there is an underlying conception of morality that exists in the heart of everyone, is poorly followed, and often poorly understood, but exists. And in there are depth of degradation and shooting, a woman in the genitals is considered a vile and obscene act.
It is clearly not considered so by Hamas and its supporters, any more than rape as a part of warfare has been considered immoral by many. In times past, the idea that there was anything wrong with cannibalism would have sounded flat bizarre.
You are assuming that some consistent concept of morality exists in everyone's hearts - but there is no reason to assume that, and plenty of evidence that a great many people don't share your ideas of morality.
You have to do better than simply proclaim that this idea exists in everyone's heart.
Actually, I would say that they do understand it. It is why they did it.
One needs to differentiate between understanding what is wrong and choosing to do it.
I am not assuming it, it is the experience I see every day from people everywhere. The people screaming about genocide are not appealing to some dusty documents, nor are they talking about harmonious society. They are frothing at the mouth and using words like 'evil'... as if they expected people everywhere to know what they are talking about, and feel the same feelings they do.
Yes, because they don't understand that not everyone agrees with them. They assume, as you appear to, that their idea of right and wrong is the only possible one, and that anyone who violates it is doing so with evil intent.
No. What I assume, as they do, is that there exists a moral standard that binds us all... that does not depend upon old documents or game theory. They believe they understand part of it, and are preaching that others should follow their understanding.
There is a difference between knowing the thing exists, which we all do, having a foundational understanding, which we all have, following the thing, which none of us do perfectly, and a more detailed and nuanced understanding, which, again, none of do perfectly. And for all of us all of this is predicated against our rebellion against God.
Yes. But did you see the way he bounces back and forth between what you might call 'subjective morality' and I would call 'preference'; and objective morality?
If we attempt to understand morality by taking our subjective and contemporary idea of good- ex. slavery is wrong, and judge moral systems by that, then we do not believe that morality is outside of humanity. We believe that nothing is greater than our power of reasoning. But our power of reasoning is easily corruptible by rationalization and bias.
When I sent you the link to the attempt to redefine Pi, I had expected you to read the article. Had you done so, you would have seen that it wasn't a single foolish politician, but rather an entire befuddled house of legislature, confronted by a foolish mathematician's attempt to collect royalties on an idiotic article in which he proposed a new and incorrect way to compute the constant. The attempt failed when an actual mathematician had a chance to read the bill.
Your point about the inability of human beings to redefine reality is well-taken, of course, but I didn't get the impression that your collocutor was trying to do that; rather, he is running into the struggle I think you are trying to point out, about how to understand and define morality. I also believe that you have made it harder to understand here and in previous articles, where you have cited mathematical and physical truths as exemplars of the idea you are proposing - of verifiable reality.
The difference is that those things are observable; the definition of morality is not. Morality does not declare something to be of a particular weight or size - it is inherently a value judgment. The difference that I think you should be arguing is relative morality vs. absolute morality. Relative morality is the opinion of human beings, and especially a human consensus. In this is very much resembles ideas like pineapple pizza: most people are horrified, but their main argument seems to be one of preference, and their main tactic is shaming dissenters.
Absolute morality, on the other hand, has several essential elements which distinguish it from relative morality. It is still necessarily a value judgment, but in this case it is the judgment of an Absolute Moralist, who must be unique (so that there can only be one such morality), eternal (so that this morality does not change over time), omnipresent (so that the rules of morality do not change with location), and omnipotent (so that the Absolute Moralist can enforce His definition). That is why absolute morality must be judgment of G-d, who meets those characteristics.
That does not, however, prove that human beings must be aware of it. They can only achieve this awareness through revelation from G-d, and there is where we run into problems. Not only do different faiths claim different revelations, within faiths, it is possible for people to disagree on interpretation, and often not to recognize that significant parts of the morality they think is from G-d is actually full of human accretion.
And that makes it doubly difficult for an unbeliever, as Fallible Father has recently declared himself to be. If absolute morality is a decree of G-d, and you don't believe in G-d,... how are you supposed to recognize the validity of these claims for morality?
Certainly, one approach might be to analyze each moral claim from a tradition, and try to understand why it is good, and why it is not. That's the approach he seems to be attempting, and it is at least a lot better than many unbelievers use.
The question, then, is what your goal might be, if there is one beyond a fun debate. I'm really not sure of the efficacy of repeating your own belief in the Christian deity, beyond its presumed familiarity to Fallible Father - who might retain some connection thereto, despite his doubts.
And some of the moral questions are not trivial. For example, I think we all agree that slavery is wrong - and yet the Bible never condemns it. Instead, it surrounds it with certain restrictions on slaveowners (regularly ignored by US slave owners, who claimed the Bible as their rationale). It's an interesting question, and one to which I have given some thought, but without any clear source for Divine guidance.
Maybe that kind of analysis would be useful here?
Great comments, Russ! I will reply in several comments of myself, to keep the issues easier to see and reply to. My replies will be in the general thread, not under this one.
This is the first time I have read the comments on this, and this is an insightful one. When I have a little more time, I am going to come back to this.
May I quote it if I feel it is relevant?
Thanks for reading, and enjoy your weekend!
You are absolutely free to quote it.
In partial response to Russ:
>>When I sent you the link to the attempt to redefine Pi, I had expected you to read the article.
1) When you sent me that post I did read it. In my post I was talking about a story ‘I heard’ at some point in my life; not the story you posted. It is quite possible that the story I heard was a devolution of the story you linked to, and it is possible that there are two people (groups) who tried legislating the value of pi. The story that I heard fit the point I was trying to make better, thus I used it (and linked to yours). I was making a logical argument, not a history lesson :)
Again in response to Russ:
2)
>>Your point about the inability of human beings to redefine reality is well-taken, of course, but I didn't get the impression that your collocutor was trying to do that rather, he is running into the struggle I think you are trying to point out, about how to understand and define morality.
I very much do get the impression he is trying to do that. I believe that when you include ‘honour your father’ as a questionable part of morality, you are, almost by definition, trying to redefine morality… which is part of reality.
You leave him two choices, IMO, one of which makes no sense. Is he saying, “Was and is pretty much all of humanity right when they claimed that ‘honour your father’ was an indispensable and key moral precept? Or can I do better??” or is he trying to redefine morality? Is he really saying, “My own human reason is superior to the combined reasoning, understanding, and intellect of the human race throughout history?” That seems pretty arrogant.
I would prefer to believe he is attempting to redefine morality, as the Supreme Court (and others) have attempted to redefine marriage.
Again, in response to Russ:
3)
>>The difference is that those things are observable; the definition of morality is not. Morality does not declare something to be of a particular weight or size - it is inherently a value judgment.
Here is where we disagree. Indeed I think it might be worth an entire post, but I will start with a comment:
a) The question isn’t one of definition, but of measurement. Thus your sentence should read something like, “The difference between morality and mathematical and physical truth is that the latter are observable…”. The definition of a mathematical truth isn’t observable either, unless your write it down.
b) It is not actually true that all mathematical and physical truths are observable. Many of them can only be inferred by their action on other things.
c) Like many mathematical and physical truths, morality is very complex. If you were to ask the question ‘How fast can gravity travel’ you would find the answer bizarre. To the best of my (very limited) understanding gravity travels as fast as light, but has effects which travel faster.
d) Like many mathematical and physical truths, morality is very complex. Thus there can be no direct and complete measurement of any particular cause and effect. If I say that ‘honour your father’ is a measurable moral truth, if I claim that a society which honours its father will produce such and such results, and one which doesn’t will produce these other effects; the problem in measuring is not that there is nothing to be measured, but that there is too much. What are all the aspects of honouring one’s father, who holds which of them to which extent? Some of them are external, some are internal.
And the results are equally complex. As are the confounding factors. What of a society that does pretty good at honouring the father, but is really bad at the whole ‘do not covet’ thing?
Weather is pretty physical. But it can be very difficult to predict. Because while it might be true that such and such conditions will produce such and such an effect; ‘such and such’ covers a multitude of sins! IOW ther are a gazillion (that might be an underestimate) of conditions that produce a gazillion effects, and the effects themselves go to make up the conditions! The rain that is falling affects the rain that will fall! And the damp ground, and the cold wind, etc etc.
e) The actions of God are known to be unknown. He does not choose to annihilate every city that has a problem with Sodomy.
I think this hints at a difference in assumptions or possibly language.
How do you understand the term "observable" in this case? I would say, for example, that mathematical truths are absolutely observable, and do not require being written down. Observable doesn't simply mean "see with your eyes." It simply means that you have an objective way to test that they are true. That includes indirect measurement; indeed much of science uses indirect measurement. For example, we generally test whether something is acidic or alkaline by immersing it in litmus paper, not by looking directly at the concentration of ions.
What objective measures would you propose for determining whether it is immoral not to honor your father?
I am, literally at this second, writing an entire post in answer to that exact question :)
The Post is entitled "A Pound of Pizza".
Again in response to Russ:
4.
>>The difference that I think you should be arguing is relative morality vs. absolute morality.
I am, except I don’t use those words, because I think they are not only confusing but actively unhelpful. I have used the following words:
a) Preference. One person, or even one culture, deciding that he likes a given behaviour, so it teaches it and practices it (to whatever extent). While being clear they do not claim that this behaviour is and should be mandatory on all humans everywhere.
b) Game Rules. A group of people setting up rules that they agree to live with. Like soccer, or the social contract theory. Again, they are not saying that these rules should be for everyone everywhere, just amongst themselves. There is a variety of conservative that claims this as their theory (sort of).
The problem with (b) is that includes elements of actual morality. If you agree to their rules, but don’t follow them, then they do stray into what you call ‘absolute morality’. IE you can pick your rules, but once picked you have to follow them.
So my point is that there is morality, and then there is everything else. Fiat law, game theory, habit, tradition, preference, house rules, and game rules. And I am lumping most of them into ‘Pizza and Sushi’, and putting what you call ‘Absolute Morality’ into its own slot. And calling it morality tout simple.
The idea of absolute morality is that it is universal and permanent. If you agree to game rules and violate them, what basis is there for saying that you have acted objectively immorally? That it contains elements of absolute morality?
Let me see if I can make it more clear. In any game, there are things that are violations of the rules, but that are considered a perfectly ordinary part of playing the game. The kind of things for which you might get a flag thrown on you in Football.
And then there are the other kind of things which would get you banned for life. The kind of things that would be called cheating.
I am arguing that that second kind of thing can only come from objective morality. If not, you end up with an infinite recursion. You ask the person do you agree to abide by the rules of the game? But then you would have to ask them do you agree to abide by your agreement to abide by the rules of the game? And then you’d have to ask them..
In the end, we get mad at cheaters and we react so strongly to them because they violated the objective morality.
Yes, you are arguing for it, but you are not offer support for your argument.
What you are calling objective morality is simply that of a particular society. There is no reason to believe that it is universal; rather, it is learned via experience.
I recall reading of a number of people in one culture in a doctor's waiting room, wiling away the time by trying to solve the Rubic's cube, with no success. A member of a different culture took the cube, disassembled it, and showed that he had solved it that way. In his culture, following the game rules made no sense if it made it hard to succeed.
Similarly, "high society" often has rules that all members of that group understand and follow, which sound artificial to outsiders.
And, of course, we have that very famous example of Alexander and the Gordian knot, in which he explicitly ignored the rules that everyone else was following, viewing them as meaningless.
5.
>>That does not, however, prove that human beings must be aware of it.
Well, one of the starting points of our discussion, I would argue, is that we are aware of it. CS Lewis, in his book ‘Mere Christianity’ makes that his opening point: we all act as if there was some sort of overarching rules that we are all supposed to be following, and get mad at each other for not following them (or not following them as we think they are supposed to follow them).
To break into modern politics, when people consider the actions of Israel or Hamas, they are not saying “Well, they have different rules than I like to live under.” They are using words, such as ‘genocide’ or ‘terrorism’, which they expect their readers to agree are bad, however much they might disagree as to the exact definition and how it works out in the current conflict.
So I would argue that the idea that all humans understand that they live in the shadow of a moral code, however defined and disagreed on, is a basic premise that needs no arguing. Indeed one of my challenges to @Fallible is whether he is willing to deny this: to reduce all of his understandings to mere preference or game theory. If he is willing to say ‘To Hell with your idea that there are moral rules which bind my actions,” then I think we would be having another conversation. (Capitalised word used intentionally, and capitalised intentionally.)
Yes, you argue that way; that doesn't make it so.
The basis for arguments over Israel vs. Hamas are generally founded in the Hague Convention of 1907, as augmented by the Geneva convention, which the signatories consider to be binding world-wide. Most people, though, don't know what these conventions actually say, and tend to react based on ideas popular among their friends.
And that is the way most people live. They believe that there is a code, which they have learned from their society. That works fairly well when the society is homogeneous; when it is not, you have different people choosing to follow different ideas of morality; any similarity between what they do and what G-d may have decreed is often coincidental.
I don’t think that’s even close to reasonable. I read an article today. The headline of which actually I didn’t read the article. I just read the headline was that Moss terrorist had executed some of their women prisoners by shooting them in the genitals and the breasts.
I doubt one person in a gazillion said huh. I bet that is against some convention somewhere or at the very least it’s against the way my society has taught us We should all live together in a kind and friendly and homogenous way.
What would that rule even look like? Thou shout not execute your women in prisoners by shooting them in the genitals?
No, what’s going on there is an underlying conception of morality that exists in the heart of everyone, is poorly followed, and often poorly understood, but exists. And in there are depth of degradation and shooting, a woman in the genitals is considered a vile and obscene act.
It is clearly not considered so by Hamas and its supporters, any more than rape as a part of warfare has been considered immoral by many. In times past, the idea that there was anything wrong with cannibalism would have sounded flat bizarre.
You are assuming that some consistent concept of morality exists in everyone's hearts - but there is no reason to assume that, and plenty of evidence that a great many people don't share your ideas of morality.
You have to do better than simply proclaim that this idea exists in everyone's heart.
Actually, I would say that they do understand it. It is why they did it.
One needs to differentiate between understanding what is wrong and choosing to do it.
I am not assuming it, it is the experience I see every day from people everywhere. The people screaming about genocide are not appealing to some dusty documents, nor are they talking about harmonious society. They are frothing at the mouth and using words like 'evil'... as if they expected people everywhere to know what they are talking about, and feel the same feelings they do.
Yes, because they don't understand that not everyone agrees with them. They assume, as you appear to, that their idea of right and wrong is the only possible one, and that anyone who violates it is doing so with evil intent.
No. What I assume, as they do, is that there exists a moral standard that binds us all... that does not depend upon old documents or game theory. They believe they understand part of it, and are preaching that others should follow their understanding.
There is a difference between knowing the thing exists, which we all do, having a foundational understanding, which we all have, following the thing, which none of us do perfectly, and a more detailed and nuanced understanding, which, again, none of do perfectly. And for all of us all of this is predicated against our rebellion against God.
BTW 'A Pound of Pizza' is up :)
I don't know if you read @Fallible's latest post on religion but, IMO, it was chock full of references back to objective morality.
"Downsides of Religion, part 3"? Yes, I skimmed it, and saw a lot of things with which I disagreed.
Yes. But did you see the way he bounces back and forth between what you might call 'subjective morality' and I would call 'preference'; and objective morality?
Read this yesterday and enjoyed it. Reread it today, even better. Some very solid points. I look forward to where this goes!