Morals are always subjective. Even if large groups of people all agree on what is and isn't moral....it's still just a large group who all subjectively agree with each other.

The formation of a moral code is the process of an individual deciding what is good and what is bad. You can certainly use science to form a moral code just as you can use religion, or societal norms, or whatever source you wish to use.

Of course many people will argue that their source is the best or only one that is morally acceptable....but in doing so, they are simply proving the point. Morals are subjective and are formed by an individual based upon whatever criteria and whatever source they chose to use in their formation.

That isn't what I meant. The specifics of what actions are right and wrong isn't important.

The important bit is what is means for something to be right and wrong. A simplistic definition could be something that is right is something that increases a group's chance of survival, but something that is wrong is something that decreases a group's chance of survival. A lot of morals do boil down to that even if it does require human level abstract thinking to resolve some moral issues down to such definitions.

But you can't have science be proving something as right or wrong if you don't nail down those definitions first. Otherwise you get people arguing back and forth over any proof when they are really arguing over what right and wrong mean.

 

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Having a rock dropped on your big toe hurts. Define that away.

 

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Pick any moral argument you want and it still comes down to the same thing. You decide the morality of the issue based on information. Where do you get this information? It's not like you were born thinking "slavery is moral."

 

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Then there is no "moral knowledge" just moral beliefs.


Which gets back to my first post.

 

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People are born with the capacity to think of things in certain ways. Once again you have failed to address the question.

 

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The real question isn't whether science can answer a moral question, it's whether religion can. So far, based upon empirical historical evidence....the answer is no.

What does that even mean? Think of what things in what ways?

 

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It means people are born with the capacity to address moral questions of good and bad.


I am still waiting for you to answer my question and demonstrate your position. So far you have made claims that yes science can prove good and bad and science can answer moral questions. Your only attempt to answer these rather fundamental issues with regard to the topic you brought up is a demonstration that you are not even willing to address the issue of moral knowledge.


How does one obtain moral knowledge?


Is there such a thing?

 

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Religion goes well beyond answering moral questions and gets into the business of establishing morality for groups of people. It can just be the morality of individuals or it can serve as a way to govern large groups of people. The nature in which societies derive their laws has changed over time but there is little doubt that decisions made by the few shouldn't rule the many, but that is essentially what religion is or is turned into. Christianity existed for a long time without being like this but it was eventually borrowed from those in government. Another major problem with religion is the lack of flexibility and the worship of laws written in the past instead of paying attention to an argument made today.


All of that said our nation is based on a rather large statement of belief.


"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."


Even if you remove the part about a Creator the statement is clearly a statement of a moral belief that is written as a statement of truth or moral knowledge.

 

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