Moral Objectivism Essay

Morals are the principles that we use to decipher right from wrong, or good from bad. Many people seem to have different morals that they live by because of the different things they believe are acceptable or good to do. This issue brings up the question, are morals unique to each individual person, or is there a standard of true morals for every person to live by? Matt Lawrence’s book, Like a Splinter in Your Mind, says that opposing sides to that question can be split into two broad categories called moral objectivism and moral non-objectivism. The idea that there is a true basic standard of morality for everyone is called moral objectivism. Moral non-objectivism is the view that no morals are objectively true, meaning either morals don’t

Tolerance is an important virtue to have in order to keep peace and avoid conflict. If countries fought every time there was a slight disagreement, then the whole world would be devastated with war. Both Matt Lawrence and Peter Kreeft address this issue and discuss how moral objectivism doesn’t mean intolerance. While moral objectivists may believe there is a standard of morals everyone should live by it doesn’t mean that they will force their beliefs upon everyone else. “And only the moral objectivist can maintain that there is something intrinsically good about respecting other people’s freedom and tolerating the diversity of beliefs” (Lawrence 111). One of the morals objectivists can have as a standard is respecting other people’s beliefs and choices. Even though everyone doesn’t follow their same morals, they tolerate and accept the differences between them. Objectivist’s tolerance does have a limit though. If objectivists see something that is clearly morally wrong like child abuse they wouldn’t just tolerate it. If you were to tolerate everything that people do then nobody would support one another or stick up for what they believe is right. Moral objectivism has just the right amount of tolerance to keep peace with people while still standing up for what is