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- Moral relativism, for instance, posits that ethical truths can be subjective, varying across cultures and individuals. However, proponents of objective ethics argue that certain moral principles are universally valid, regardless of cultural context. This ongoing debate highlights the intricate relationship between objective truth and ethics.
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Aug 29, 2023 · A society that values and seeks objective truth fosters critical thinking, intellectual growth, and informed decision-making. Embracing objective truth allows individuals to make sound judgments based on evidence, rather than succumbing to baseless beliefs or misinformation.
Jul 30, 2021 · What connects ethics with truth are ethical theories: utilitarianism, kantianism, aristotelianism, etc. For example, utilitarianism states that the choice that provides good to most people is the right one.
- The controversial issue isn't whether there are some objective truths in ethics, but whether statements about ethics are the kinds of statements th...
- Ill-formed question: ethics does not define any truth . To start, ethics is a system of rules, that is, a coherent set of statements that rule beh...
- One such truth, if the question is to be considered valid: reason and logic are essential. In other words, if you want objectivity, you'll need th...
A. Ethical statements could have truth conditions which are objective a priori. Ethics could be objective in the sense that moral problems can be solved by rational methods. Moral judgments are rationally justified.
According to non-cognitive versions of ethical subjectivism, such as emotivism, prescriptivism, and expressivism, ethical statements cannot be true or false, at all: rather, they are expressions of personal feelings or commands.
- Terminology
- Epistemological Issues
- Metaphysical Issues
- Objectivity in Ethics
- Major Historical Philosophical Theories of Objective Reality
- References and Further Reading
Many philosophers would use the term “objective reality” to refer to anything that exists as it is independent of any conscious awareness of it (via perception, thought, etc.). Common mid-sized physical objects presumably apply, as do persons having subjective states. Subjective reality would then include anything depending upon some (broadly const...
a. Can We Know Objective Reality?
The subjective is characterized primarily by perceiving mind. The objective is characterized primarily by physical extension in space and time. The simplest sort of discrepancy between subjective judgment and objective reality is well illustrated by John Locke’s example of holding one hand in ice water and the other hand in hot water for a few moments. When one places both hands into a bucket of tepid water, one experiences competing subjective experiences of one and the same objective realit...
b. Does Agreement Among Subjects Indicate Objective Knowledge?
Measurement is allegedly a means to reach objective judgments, judgments having at least a high probability of expressing truth regarding objective reality. An objective judgment regarding the weather, in contrast to the competing subjective descriptions, would describe it as, say, 20°C (68°F). This judgment results from use of a measuring device. It is unlikely that the two perceiving subjects, using functioning thermometers, would have differing judgments about the outside air. The example...
c. Primary and Secondary Qualities: Can We Know Primary Qualities?
According to Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities, some of our subjective impressions do not correspond to any objective reality in the thing perceived. Our perception of sound, for example, is nothing like the actual physical vibrations that we know are the real cause of our subjective experience. Our perception of color is nothing like the complex combinations of various frequencies of electromagnetic radiation that we know cause our perception of color. Locke asserts...
In metaphysics, i.e., the philosophical study of the nature of reality, the topic of objectivity brings up philosophical puzzles regarding the nature of the self, for a perceiving subject is also, according to most metaphysical theories, a potential object of someone else’s perceptions. Further, one can perceive oneself as an object, in addition to...
a. Persons in Contrast to Objects
First, the dual nature of persons as both subjects (having subjective experience) and objects within objective reality relates to one of the paramount theories of ethics in the history of philosophy. Immanuel Kant’s ethics gives a place of central importance to respect for persons. One formulation of his highly influential Categorical Imperative relates to the dual nature of persons. This version demands that one “treat humanity, in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply...
b. Objectivism, Subjectivism and Non-Cognitivism
Philosophical theories about the nature of morality generally divide into assertions that moral truths express subjective states and assertions that moral truths express objective facts, analogous to the fact, for example, that the sun is more massive than the earth. So-called subjectivist theories regard moral statements as declaring that certain facts hold, but the facts expressed are facts about a person’s subjective states. For example, the statement “It is wrong to ignore a person in dis...
c. Objectivist Theories
Among objectivist theories of morality, the most straightforward version declares that is it an objective fact, for example, that it is wrong to ignore a person in distress if you are able to offer aid. This sort of theory asserts that the wrongness of such behavior is part of objective reality in the same way that the sun’s being more massive than the earth is part of objective reality. Both facts would obtain regardless of whether any conscious being ever came to know either of them. Other...
Any serious study of the nature of objectivity and objective knowledge should examine the central metaphysical and epistemological positions of history’s leading philosophers, as well as contemporary contributions. The following very brief survey should give readers some idea of where to get started. Plato is famous for a distinctive view of object...
Alston, William P. “Yes, Virginia, There is a Real World.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association52 (1979): 779-808.Descartes, Rene. Meditations (1641). In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, eds. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).Kant, Immanuel. Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics(1783). Trans. James W. Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1977).Locke, John. Essay Concerning Human Understanding(1689). Ed. Peter Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).Nov 8, 2017 · A typical guiding principle of an account of truth is: “truth is objective,” or, to be clear, judging whether an assertion is true or false depends upon how things are in the world rather than how someone or some community believes it to be.
It is the problem of being clear about what you are saying when you say some claim or other is true. The most important theories of truth are the Correspondence Theory, the Semantic Theory, the Deflationary Theory, the Coherence Theory, and the Pragmatic Theory. They are explained and compared here.
