Objectivity, Morality, and Religion

            It seems clear to me and to the author that when people talk about morality, they do so as if it is objective.  To show this, the author brings up several examples of cultural practices which the reader will almost certainly feel the need to criticize in order to then point out that it would be impossible to criticize the practices without believing in some standard that applies to people outside of culture.  But the author simply stops there, which to me does not show that morality is objective, but simply that we feel as if it is.

            I feel as though if I were to continue asking “why?” to a person who believed he had the objectively correct stance on a moral issue, there will always eventually be a point at which the person would reply, “Because that’s what I feel is right!”  It may be that I simply have not thought about certain issues or am not well-read enough, but many debates at their roots appear to me to be based on mere differences in opinion or how one feels about a moral dilemma.  (For example, some debates have at their root the clash between utilitarianism and deontology.  I personally don’t really see how one way of approaching morality can be said to be objectively better than the other.)

            Now such small differences may not be an issue for the author because he seems to be open to the possibility that there do not have to be objective truths that exist “outside of humanity” and that morality may simply be a tool that is useful for humans just to promote human welfare.  However, to me and, I think to many others, that sense of “objective” morality is not quite satisfying.  When I disagree with someone’s belief about a moral issue, I don’t do so simply because I think society would work better if people subscribed to my belief.  I do so because certain actions that seem wrong or right to me appear to be so not only on a human level, but also on a metaphysical one.

            This is why I feel that the author brushes away the potential role of religion in morality too easily.  Although I am not very religious, religion and the moral truths that God could reveal appear to me the only grounds on which I could claim that there exist absolute, objective moral truths.  Of course, just because I want a religion to be “true” so that I can have this objective moral foundation does not make it true or not true.  But the idea that an infallible, all-knowing being could impart moral truths and a moral framework for humans to live a good life remains an appealing one to me.  Principles such as the duty to show love to all, including your enemies, hold an objective moral goodness and truth to me; but what kind of a moral framework besides religion could “objectively” show that a person has a moral duty to show love to everyone?