Introduction

There are no objective moral facts. While we often speak and think in terms of objective moral facts, this is an error.

Why is it that disputes about what is right and wrong are so common? Here in the United States we debate abortion, human cloning, euthanasia, homosexuality, premarital sex, gun control, and a great range of other topics. There are different moral values and different debates in other countries, and moral debates and values have changed through the course of history.

Not all values have changed or differ, but even when there is wide spread agreement on a moral topic, there are still those people who hold and act upon unpopular views that the majority consider to be highly immoral. Nazi leader Adolph Hitler, and serial killer Ted Bundy did not seem to be troubled by murder; Bonnie and Clyde were not troubled by bank robbery; and some of the Serbian troops (in the 1999 conflict) were not troubled by the idea of raping Kosovar women and burning their homes.

There are interesting and important questions about the nature of morality. What do we mean when we say actions are right or wrong? Why are they right or wrong? Which particular are right and which are wrong? Why can't we come to universal agreement on moral values?

After much thought and research on the subject of morality, I have come to the conclusion that morality is subjective. This is the thesis for my paper: that morality is subjective - that moral judgments do not have an objective foundation. Ultimately, moral judgments amount to nothing more than subjective personal feelings, imperatives, and opinions. Hence there is no basis for any moral judgment to be true or false.

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Moral subjectivism as an error theory can be understood by close analogy with other types of subjective value judgments that, as we normally use language, can also be shown to be error theories. “Delicious”, “boring”, and “sexy” are examples.

In the normal use of language, we might say that a certain food is delicious, a certain movie is boring, or that a certain person is sexy. This use of language implies that a food can posses the property of being delicious: a food can posses (or instantiate) deliciousness. Similarly, a movie might have the property of boringness or a person the property of sexiness.

Generally, there is no problem using language in this way: we have no difficulty understanding one another when we speak in this manner. While this may seem the case superficially, we also recognize that such judgments are really matters of personal judgment. This insight is needed to understand the following conversation:

Smith: 'How was the movie?'

Doe: 'It was boring, although you might like it.'

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Key words: good, bad, evil, right, wrong, moral, ethical, morality, ethics, justice, subjective, objective, absolute, cognitive, non-cognitive, realist, realism, anti-realism, anti-realist, error theory, Hume, Mackie, subjectivism, relativism, cultural relativism.