if you're atheist, can you believe that morality is objective?

Morality is based on local or community values, even values taught within the family/community. It has nothing to do with being told what to do by "god." Its a matter of a persons own conscience and moral upbringing, not religion.

Morality is objective. That does not mean that it is consistent.

4+7 = 11

It also equals B (base 16)

It also equals 13 (base 8)

so, a very objective 4+7 can give different results under different conditions.

Morals are objective within a certain society.

If a society has a low level of technology, but needs a high level of simple work to be done then slavery will be moral.

If a society changes such that there are technologies to perform that work, or the work requires a higher skill level then slavery will be immoral.

These are objective truths in a changing environment. Morals are determined by what is good or bad for the society. They are not really subjectively imposed by the whims of a single person or small group. And the few times that they are those morals usually get rejected by the society and the individual or group removed from their position of power.

Morals are objective. But they are not absolute.

>If you're atheist, can you believe that morality is objective?

Yes. I'm an atheist and I believe that morality is objective.

>And if so, what leads you to this conclusion? Why do you believe it?

First, consider what I call the 'objective viewpoint'. This is a theoretical viewpoint that is omniscient, unbiased, and knows all things with certainty. No being actually sees things from the objective viewpoint or could ever do so, but it is useful for subjective beings like us in order to understand the reality that contains us. Subjectively, we understand reality through perceptions and models, whereas the objective viewpoint is the viewpoint that understands reality directly, as it actually is in its entirety.

There exist beings (humans, for instance) who have desires, that is to say, they subjectively want reality to develop in certain ways. The objective viewpoint can, and necessarily does, recognize the existence of those beings and their desires. Although the objective viewpoint does not involve any inherent preference for what shall happen, its recognition that subjective desires exist is reflected in it as a normative force. In other words, the objective viewpoint does not desire things, but things nevertheless are, objectively speaking, desired (because there are subjective viewpoints desiring them). This, essentially, is the solution to the is-ought problem and the foundation of objective morality.

I realize that my meaning here may be hard to understand, and I'm not entirely sure that our language and philosophy are powerful enough yet to capture and convey it effectively. Nevertheless, it has been my experience that objections to my argument here boil down to one of two assumptions: That the objective viewpoint somehow does not recognize subjective desires, or that there is some sort of 'anti-desire' principle that cancels out the normative force generated that way. I have not heard any adequate basis for either of these assumptions. Of course, if you think you have a way to back one of them up, or some other objection that doesn't use either of them, I'd be glad to hear it. :)

>This is nicely demonstrated when you ask a person who thinks murder is objectively wrong, what they'd do if someone tortured their kids.

Statements like 'murder is objectively wrong' or 'rape is objectively wrong' or whatever are always or almost always incorrect. However, I think people too quickly assume that the reason for this must be the absence of any objective morality, and so that this is an argument against objective morality. In fact, the reason is that morality does not measure actions by their types, but by their effects (and likewise, intentions not by their types, but by their goals). Murder or rape may be good if their effects are good, with no loss of objectivity.

No, morality is neither objective or subjective.

Morality is contractual.

If you look at all of what are considered moral behaviors they arise out of the needs of business.

Morality supports trading economies.

Everything from not robbing, not raping, not eating your potential customers to paying your debts in an honest fashion are all moral behaviors.

Societies that rely on military might, instead of trade for power, do not hold these behaviors in as high esteem.

They regard things like bravery, elan, cunning, deceptiveness, and strength as the higher virtues instead.

(and it is quite OK to eat the vanquished after you rape his wives and kill his kids while torturing him in some of the more extreme groups that do not engage in trade at all)

Edit.

Maybe I should state there are two branches of morality, because the militarist cultures belief is that they are behaving morally too.

It's certainly possible. Not all bases for the belief in objective morality are religious, and atheism is JUST lack of belief in gods.

Try reading the book "Ethics without God" by Kai Nielsen. He actually has some interesting sections about the different types of secular morality systems.

Yes you can. Evolutionary biology provides an explanation for a least some moral principles in social animals like humans. Richard Dawkins devotes an entire chapter on this question in "The God Dellusion"

Some parts of our morality are indeed objective, the very basics of not murdering someone and in a lesser way not stealing from someone are things which come natural.

Even animals have such a kind of morality, but they never think about it, it's just there, showing that it's objective.

Totally subjective. There are a few universal taboos "unjustified killing" (defined differently by each culture) for example. But for the most part, each culture has its own set of right and wrong.

Ruth Benedict has a great piece on morality based on her anthropological experiences.

because not assisting other members of the human race defeates the purpose of being a social animal. there are many examples in nature where an animals sacrifices itself, if it benefits the survival of the group.

allowing killing of someone is bad because it endangers everyone, so by seeing murder as evil and punishing it it increases the survival chance of the species

Maybe if they have a non-standard definition of objective. Like if it applies to all humans, then it's technically subjective, because it requires the human context, but could be construed as effectively objective because the human context is the a context that humans share (and you presume you're talking about humans, instead of all objects).