Q&A: Objective Morality
Objective Morality
Question
How can morality be objective? After all, in the end the decision whether to apply it comes from the subject. Suppose morality comes from the Torah; then that is a fact of reality (there are moral laws in the Torah). You still need an additional assumption—that one indeed ought to do what is written in the Torah—in order for it to become morality. That assumption makes it subjective, doesn’t it? After all, that assumption would not have “existed” if there were no human beings who assumed it. It does not exist outside of them.
Answer
By that logic, the law of gravity is also subjective, since someone had to discover it for us to know about it.
Morality is a fact, like the law of gravity. It obligates everyone, and in that sense it is objective; except that each person has the freedom to choose whether to obey it or not. The same is true of religious obligation (Jewish law).