The Truth About Truth | Part 1 Is truth objective or subjective?
It seems like conversations on the bigger questions about life are almost pointless in today’s society. The mode operenda is side A. Makes a blanket statement. Then side B tells them they are dumb and to do their research and an elementary school level fight ensues. No one walks away understanding a new idea and no real conversation takes place.
I want to have a conversation about where morals come from and if there is a case for more than just physical reality such as a spiritual one. However, after last week’s video, it became clear that this topic would be pointless to jump into until we first analyze the communication issues going on amongst humans right now.
The importance of nuance and defining your terms
The straw man
Our linguistics or ability to communicate through language is limited. Regardless of what a dictionary might say people differ greatly from one another in their definition of words.
What happens is they can argue all day long about the logical fallacies of the opponent’s words and never change their mind cause they haven’t actually addressed what the person meant or actually believes, they have only addressed what they think they said.
We call this a straw man argument. A straw man argument is a great argument that completely obliterates the other person’s view. The only problem is it has very little to do with what the other person actually believes.
A straw man argument is a misrepresentation of an opinion or viewpoint, designed to be as easy as possible to refute. Just as a person made of straw would be easier to fight with than a real human, a straw man argument is easy to knock to the ground.
https://fs.blog/2020/05/bad-arguments/
A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man". Wikipedia
So how do we avoid falling into this trap? 3 things that will help are:
Accept that most ideas are more nuanced than a blanket statement can cover.
Define your terms
Before you respond, ask “what do you mean by that?” What is the question their idea is answering? When you disagree are you sure you’re even talking about the same question?
Accept that most ideas are more nuanced than a blanket statement can cover.
Here’s an example.
I used to make the blanket statement that because I believe God was the definer of good and evil that makes me a moral objectivist But if we looked at the details those statements aren’t fully accurate or complete. In the Christian worldview, The law and justice are objective which should be a comforting fact. What a scary idea it would be to face an earthly court whose justice was subjective how much more facing a God whose Justice was subjective.
But we don’t believe that morality is made up of only the law we believe it is equally made up of compassion, grace, and mercy. Compassion is not based on rules of cause and effect compassion has subjective elements. Therefore while the law is objective morality has an element of both objective law and subjective compassion.
Define your terms - An example of a common conversation fallacy
In the conversation about morality and whether truth and morality are objective or subjective you will usually hear these two comments made.
Objectivists (not sure if that’s a real word but were going with it) will say;
“There can only be one truth.”
while Relativists (Proponents of Subjective morality and truth) will say;
“No, truth is in the eye of the beholder. It’s like blindfolded kids touching an elephant. One may be explaining the head and the other the tail and they may both be right!”
Argument ensues.
The issue here is these two people are talking about completely different things and don’t even realize it because they haven’t defined their terms to each other.
So let’s break down the argument above.
The objectivist needs to define their terms. When you say “there can only be one truth” what do you mean? This can be easily confused. I am a partial objectivist and have used this phrase a lot. I certainly don’t mean “one” numerically.
I also see a difference between true and truth, a distinction the listener may not pick up on. I can say I have a dog and a cat and both those things are true. That’s technically two truths, not one. There are millions of things that are true.
I would also agree with the relativist that more than one thing can be true about the same object. I don’t have any issue with the elephant analogy. An elephant can obviously have a nose and a leg and both of those things can be true at the same time without contradiction.
The statement about one truth isn’t about whether or not people’s interpretation of that truth might differ, or if more than one thing can be true at the same time, what it means is that they believe truth is objective.
We might differ on our view of the truth but our interpretation doesn’t change reality.
The blind man touching the elephant’s tail in the picture thinking it’s a rope, while his opinion is understandable it’s still wrong it’s not a rope it’s a tail.
If reality is objective then if your perspective doesn’t line up with reality your perspective can be said to be wrong. On the other hand, those who do not believe in objective reality or truth, but rather think that the object is only a manifestation of your belief, would conclude that there is no real right or wrong.
If the nature of truth is objective then it must be based on a standard that’s outside of and higher than ourselves. While our perception of that standard may differ the standard itself is objective and therefore doesn’t change based on the person’s perspective.
I personally do not believe that most reality/truth is subjective or relative. As mentioned in the nuance section there are some exceptions like possibly ultraviolet light particles. However, if we go back to our animal analogy my reaction to the animal may change depending on what I believe about it, but my belief does not change the animal. If I believe a rabid lion is a tame elephant I may not run from it but I will still be eaten.
Belief systems are important but it’s also important that your belief system is based on reality/truth.
When other objectivists and I say there can only be one truth what we really mean is that truth or reality is objective. We agree that the elephant can have many parts or many things simultaneously true but the animal is either an elephant or a lion, not both simultaneously it doesn’t change between an elephant and a lion depending on what I believe about it.
The relativists who use the elephant analogy should also define their terms. We’ve already covered that objectivists don’t have an issue with 2 things being true at the same time. But if I had to guess I think what some relativists actually mean is that objectivists are notorious for being arrogant. If you are a true relativist or proponent of subjective reality then please watch my next video cause that’s what we are going to dive into next. But if what you really mean is that you believe in objective reality you just think the objectivist is being an arrogant prick then the better retort is not denying objective reality but rather pointing out the agreement on objective reality but reminding the objectivist that they are not God.
I believe objective reality exists, I believe God as the creator of reality gets to define it. I believe that if that God has revealed things about reality those things can be said to be the truth but I am also careful to acknowledge that I may have a flawed understanding of those truths.
I fully recognize that I myself am NOT God and I am not inerrant. My understanding or interpretation of that truth might by misguided my understanding of even the revealed truths of God might be wrong.
That is why I am open to and welcome conversation. I am an aggressive seeker of the truth.
Instead of attack and offense, my hope is that we as humans can dialogue together to better understand which different issues are.
Linguistic communication issues and which are actual disagreements. Which are feet vs. tusk issues and which are elephant vs lion issues. (So that we can focus the discussion around the important issues instead of fighting straw men for years and chasing the wind).
So, what are your thoughts on how can objectivists better explain their belief in objective truth while still acknowledging that they are not God and might be wrong about what the truth is, and how many relativists actually believe truth is relative and subjective? Are most people who claim they believe truth is subjective really just objective truth believers who think objectivists should stop implying they perfectly understand what that truth is?
And lastly, is truth knowable at all is this conversation even worth having?
I believe it is and I’ll discuss this more in my next video.
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