There is No Objective Morality, but there are Objective Moral Principles.

The question “is there an objective morality,” is deeply flawed. It is however an easy mistake that most make.

Morality is an entire system similar to mathematics or science, and you don’t see the same question being asked of either. Yet rational agents don’t dispute that there are objective mathematical and scientific principles. To give an example, I point out that Euler’s conjecture on Graeco-Latin squares, and A. M. Legendre’s claim that 6 is not the sum of 2 rational cubes were both proven to be false. There are many unproven mathematical formulas but we don’t generally say the field is not objective, or that it is “subjective.”

I’ve already argued previously the crippling problem with treating this subject with binary logic: objective vs subjective, true vs false or 1 vs 0.

IMO, it’s far more useful to ask whether there are objective moral principles. We also have to distinguish between an “intensional” definition of morality vs an “extensional,” whereby we merely point to an example. In essence I’m saying we ought to put a stake in the ground by first intensionally defining what we mean by morality (including its actions and attributes) and THEN extensionally pointing to an instance as proof.

So my morality concept consists of a definition, and a purpose. I then create an instance by…