The Testing of Assertions

Hi David
Sorry for such a brief response, but am very busy right now.
Are you saying that slavery was moral during the era of the slave triangle? Were the abolitionists morally wrong to oppose slavery, right up until the law changed at which point they became morally correct? See, I believe it was always morally wrong, no matter if it was recognised as such at the time.

Pete,
“Were the abolitionists morally wrong to oppose slavery, right up until the law changed at which point they became morally correct?”
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m merely pointing out that appealing to some “objective moral order” – generally God’s moral order, as variously conceived – has been done throughout history and with conflicting assumptions. Obviously, many of those appeals aren’t terribly convincing to later generations, with very good reasons. But those reasons can be arrived at, and defended, without involving God or what one thinks His preferences might be.

Pete,
Sorry for the delay; was running errands.
“To take the sort of stance you want to take does require reference to such an objective moral standard, else what one is left with is the enforcement of personal preference. There is no reason why your preference for respecting others should take precedence over the barbarian preference for beating women.”
But is it an all-or-nothing situation? Conceding an epistemological point – that our knowledge is conditional (and that morality may be modified by subsequent knowledge and future possibilities) – doesn’t imply that all things are somehow equal or that no judgement can be made as to whether one view is better than another. A superior morality isn’t necessarily based on absolutes, or on intimate familiarity with the preferences of hypothetical deities.
For one thing, there’s the issue of empathy. I wouldn’t wish to be a slave or treated shabbily. Nor do I particularly enjoy treating others shabbily or as slaves. That’s just how I am, at least on a good day. I assume other people have broadly similar preferences… and hence reciprocation is possible – and positive feedback. Inferior moral systems generally involve a much greater degree of coercion and disregard for the individual. Now my knowledge of how other people think may be conditional and (to say the least) incomplete, but a workable judgement is still possible and can lead to mutual benefit.
You may choose to extend this with reference to absolutes or the alleged preferences of some hypothetical deity who happens to think much as you do; but I don’t see that as necessary. If such a belief helps you treat people well, especially in adversity, then good for you. But I find my own agnostic outlook works adequately and with fewer epistemological issues.
Update:
I don’t want to pursue this too far – we’ve already roamed from the ostensible topic – but it seems to me individuality and reciprocation are the keys to determining which morality is superior to another – in mortal terms, if not cosmic ones. As I said, inferior moral systems tend to disregard the individual and his territory, whether physical or psychological, and they also tend to rely heavily on fear, infantilism and coercion. In short, they tend to be tribal. The individual is grossly subservient to the state or collective. (I doubt anyone here would have much trouble determining why, say, the North Korean social model is indecent and disabling.)
Now one might say, “Okay, but personal preference aside, what’s so great about individualism and reciprocation?” In which case, I’d argue that societies and moral systems that favour individualism (or at least make it possible) tend to be more successful, more prosperous, more inventive, artistically and intellectually richer, etc. I don’t know if those things qualify as an “objective moral order” but they work for me. And I suspect I’m not alone in that.

Pete,
I’m not sure what you mean by this:
“However, it is possible to conceive of an objective moral order without conflating it with God.”
Given what had gone before, I assumed you meant some “objective moral order” external to human preference or estimation, i.e. something absolute. Hence the God business and the epistemic problems that entails. (If a person claims to know that God exists and what He prefers, how do they know this? How do they know they know it? And so forth.) So, what “objective moral order” do you have in mind, if not something involving a deity?
“I genuinely do not see how you can have one without the other.”
Well, there’s a difference between objectively better and absolute. The criteria I suggested – prosperity, autonomy, intellectual richness, etc – are measurable and demonstrable, and so objective in a practical, everyday sense. Though I suppose some might still dispute whether they constitute an “objective moral order,” insofar as they operate in mortal terms and with a basic presumption that, broadly speaking, human misery is best reduced rather than, say, exacerbated. (I’m assuming we don’t have to ponder metaphysics in which the perpetuation of human suffering is actually desirable.) And if the factors mentioned above are acceptable as an objective standard, it’s also worth noting that people who are free to move tend to relocate their families to societies like our own. I’m not aware of any mass rush to relocate to North Korea, for instance.
“I don’t take issue with your agnostic outlook, but the same epistemological issues are still there only you aren’t acknowledging them.”
Which epistemological issues? I don’t claim to know the alleged preferences of a hypothetical deity. Compared to those who do, my estimation of why this thing is better than that seems fairly straightforward… and positively modest.

Pete,
“You tell me! You’re the one who wants me to accept your moral precepts *as if* they have an objective basis, but without the confidence to claim as much.”
I think we’re talking at cross purposes. You asked how one might argue a preference for one moral system over another without reference to some “objective moral order” – a term that still remains somewhat loaded and ambiguous. I’ve given some criteria one might use, at least as a starting point. Either you accept the criteria as objective, measurable and legitimate or you don’t, but it isn’t simply a matter of arbitrarily asserting personal preferences.
Whether the criteria I listed are objective in some cosmic sense – i.e. “rooted in something sublime and ineffable” – which is what I took you to imply – is another matter. As I said earlier, perhaps they are. It’s certainly true that moral systems tend to include unanalysed inclinations or preferences that aren’t adequately rendered in rational and quantifiable terms. That’s the nature of the beast, isn’t it? If you pursue pretty much any line of thought, sooner or later you arrive at uncertainty. (You could, I suppose, make some larger point about uncertainty, but I don’t see how that would bolster religious belief. Though I can see how it might lead to agnosticism or a profound scepticism.)
“It seems that you think doing so leads inevitably to the acceptance of ‘a hypothetical deity’, or God, as we like to call Him.”
Well, I don’t know that it leads inevitably to such things, though it often does. I’m just not sure how one might evaluate moral issues in terms of the “sublime and ineffable.” If you do that, you’re welcome to explain how.

Pete,
“Behind ANY discussion of morality is the assertion that it is good to be good. I call this ineffable because it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to put into words why we ought to be good. It is something we feel or intuit rather than rationally account for.”
Ah, that is clearer and I don’t think we disagree on the existence of non-reasoned aspects of morality. (The provenance of such things is perhaps another matter.) Certainly, there can be a drama and poignancy to morality that isn’t readily explicable in rational terms. Though, in fairness, I don’t recall suggesting otherwise.
I suspect that insofar as people try to fathom their moral assumptions at all, they often rationalise those assumptions after-the-fact, or opportunistically, or in ways that aren’t entirely consistent. I’ve suggested some rational criteria one *might* use and some practical advantages of behaving in a certain way, but that doesn’t mean I assume people think like that as a matter of course. As I said, “It’s certainly true that moral systems tend to include unanalysed inclinations or preferences that aren’t adequately rendered in rational and quantifiable terms.”
That said, it seems to me that a preference for reciprocity, autonomy, curiosity, intellectual richness, trust, etc isn’t without some fairly obvious practical advantages, both for oneself and the wider society. (For instance, courtesy is both a social lubricant and a useful personal discipline – one that encourages clarity in emotionally stressful situations. In that sense, one might even think of courtesy as a basically selfish activity that happens to have social benefits.) And cultures that favour such things, or make them possible, tend to flourish more than those that don’t. Whether or not these advantages are explicitly understood or used as moral arguments, they may be grasped instinctively and acted upon (at least some of the time).

Pete,
“On the point of reciprocity and altruism being basically selfish, this doesn’t explain the acts of such figures as Maximillian Kolbe, who put himself forward for execution in order for a fellow death camp inmate to be spared. That kind of moral steadfastness is much more profound than a purely practical self-interest!”
I wasn’t suggesting pragmatism or self-interest as a sole or comprehensive explanation. I wasn’t arguing that all moral behaviour can be configured in self-serving or practical terms. I’m not making that kind of claim. There will always be self-sacrificial examples that are striking and/or symbolic. But one can, I think, argue that a great deal of moral behaviour – certainly a lot of the more prosaic aspects, civility, trust, reciprocation, etc – persist because, more often than not, they work. They often bring advantages, at least in the broader term. (One might suppose that early in human history tribes that cooperated internally had tactical advantages over tribes that didn’t organise in this way.) Again, I’m not trying to offer a comprehensive explanation; I’m just noting the existence of some practical benefits.
“We’ve possibly done this topic to death…”
Yes, possibly, at least for now. It was fun, though.