Moral relativity? (1 Viewer)

[ad infinitum]

If you're just going to tell me I'm stupid, and not elaborate on your position at all, please stop posting.

I may be dense, but please bear with me and explain exactly how natural selection justifies morality?

To 'justify' is defined as; to show to be reasonable or provide adequate ground for. Evolution (I was not merely referring to 'genetic' evolution, but cultural and memetic evolution, etc as well) shows Morality to be reasonable; it provides adequate grounds for Morality.

A significant problem with arguing that natural selection is a justification for a particular moral framework, is that acting purely to maximise reproductive success (which is all that natural selection is), produces many behaviours that violate the rights of others. While natural selection will usually favor cooperative behaviour, there are many instances where rape, violence and theft, if you can get away with it, would maximise reproductive success.

I meant evolution in broader sense (i.e + cultural evolution,etc ). In modern society Morality is concerned with questions of well being and suffering (not simply reproduction) .

How does it justify morality? It is the origin of the emotional, human response to particular situations, but it does not justify whether this particular action is moral.

Same as what I wrote above.

Natural selection explains how human response to certain situations developed. It does not say whether these responses are moral or immoral.

Well, how does natural selection speak? It will select for things that are moral (i.e that promote a successful community) so infact natural selection does have a 'say'in what is moral and what is not. For example, 'guilt' is an evolved mechanism that allows communities to operate better; our 'guilt' intuitions have therefore something to 'say' about what is moral and what is not.

Why is it wrong to cause suffering?

Because 'Wrong' is defined as 'contray to morality/law', Morality/Law are concerned with suffering.

Can you rephrase this sentence- "What is therefore of real importance?"
It's grammatically incorrect and makes no sense.

How is asking what value or meaning there is in a particular action (which is what I am referring to by 'importance'), vague?

You constantly refer human suffering/well being and issues of morality as 'unimporant' or 'not significant'. By asking you what YOU think is important is a device I am using to try and make you see the ill of your ways. You have not answered this question yet.

Furthermore, I think our disagreement stems from our definitions of Morality. How do you define Morality?

 

[Silver Persian]

Um. So after slightly more consideration, I'm going to say what I said before, and suggest that the only thing that makes life valuable is the value that humans ascribe to it.

Sorry Graney

 

[John McCain]

To 'justify' is defined as; to show to be reasonable or provide adequate ground for. Evolution (I was not merely referring to 'genetic' evolution, but cultural and memetic evolution, etc as well) shows Morality to be reasonable; it provides adequate grounds for Morality.

You've just restated your premise, not explained why it provides grounds for morality, or answers any moral question.

why we should act on the intuitions provided by evolution?

I meant evolution in broader sense (i.e + cultural evolution,etc ). In modern society Morality is concerned with questions of well being and suffering (not simply reproduction) .

But natural selection (which is the only justification you've provided for morality), is only concerned with what encourages reproductive success.

Well, how does natural selection speak? It will select for things that are moral (i.e that promote a successful community)

No it will select for reproductive success, and that alone. Reproductive success may at times, be best encouraged by anti-social and violent behaviour.

so infact natural selection does have a 'say'in what is moral and what is not. For example, 'guilt' is an evolved mechanism that allows communities to operate better; our 'guilt' intuitions have therefore something to 'say' about what is moral and what is not.

Even if you've evolved this observation about guilt, why should you act on it?

I accept that humans have evolved an emotional response to certain stimuli (e.g. guilt), but why should they react in any particular manner because of this stimuli?

Because 'Wrong' is defined as 'contray to morality/law', Morality/Law are concerned with suffering.

Two things here- Whose morality, and whose law? What if I follow sharia law/morality, which says that rape within marriage is acceptable?

You constantly refer human suffering/well being and issues of morality as 'unimporant' or 'not significant'. By asking you what YOU think is important is a device I am using to try and make you see the ill of your ways. You have not answered this question yet.

I think you could easily infer my position, which is that no given action can be objectively determined as having significance.

Furthermore, I think our disagreement stems from our definitions of Morality. How do you define Morality?

Websters dictionary define morality as "concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct "

 

[ad infinitum]

Websters dictionary define morality as "concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct "

Yes I believe this is where our differences are arising from. In this context I define Morality as any system that interlocks values, practices, institutions and physiological mechanisms in order to suppress suffering/selfishness and promote well being/altruism. And there are winning strategies; these strategies are moral or 'good' (of course, there will be nuances).

Even if you've evolved this observation about guilt, why should you act on it?

I accept that humans have evolved an emotional response to certain stimuli (e.g. guilt), but why should they react in any particular manner because of this stimuli?

So 'guilt' indicates that natural selection is 'saying' that you are doing something immoral, you are doing something detrimental to your community (and hence the survival of its- and perhaps your genes). It is a suppressor of selfishness (and the suffering that will perhaps eventuate), you don't get to 'chose' whether you 'experience guilt', it occurs, it impacts your decision regardless of what you ultimately decide to do.

What is stopping a perfectly healthy person randomly walking into a school and blowing it up? Why is this immoral? From your position (moral nihilism) there is nothing immoral about this. This has to be the reductio ad absurdum of your position.

 

[killthechicken]

relative.
for example murder.
when its a single person, its murder.
when its many people, its a massacre
when its thousands, its a war

as the antagonist on cliffhanger said "you kill a person, you are a murderer. when you kill thousands, you are a ruler"

.

forgot the final part of that quote...kill a man and you're a murderer, kill many and you're a conqueror, kill them all and you're a god (Jean Rostand)

 

[John McCain]

Yes I believe this is where our differences are arising from. In this context I define Morality as any system that interlocks values, practices, institutions and physiological mechanisms in order to suppress suffering/selfishness and promote well being/altruism. And there are winning strategies; these strategies are moral or 'good' (of course, there will be nuances).

You're just restating your premise that suffering/selfishness are wrong, you haven't justified why it is so.

So 'guilt' indicates that natural selection is 'saying' that you are doing something immoral

What about when I feel emotions of anger and vengeance, is natural selection then telling me that violence is morally justified?

When I feel guilt, how do I know that it is saying I am doing something immoral? Why should I trust or react to this feeling?

you are doing something detrimental to your community (and hence the survival of its- and perhaps your genes).

Why is the perpetuation of community and genes moral?

What is stopping a perfectly healthy person randomly walking into a school and blowing it up? Why is this immoral? From your position (moral nihilism) there is nothing immoral about this. This has to be the reductio ad absurdum of your position.

Yes, I might say such an action is inconsequential. What rules of logic does that position contradict?

 

[ad infinitum]

You're just restating your premise that suffering/selfishness are wrong, you haven't justified why it is so.

Yes I have justified it. Twice actually. Your asking me to anchor a free floating rational when no such anchor needs to be cast.

What about when I feel emotions of anger and vengeance, is natural selection then telling me that violence is morally justified?

In a very primitive sense, yes. But emotions like these arose before the social aspect of our species matured, and hence are not as strongly tied to questions of morality as emotions like love, guilt, etc (which developed after/during the social ontogenesis of our species).

When I feel guilt, how do I know that it is saying I am doing something immoral? Why should I trust or react to this feeling?

I simply stated that mechanisms like guilt supported the idea of some kinds of moral truths. No where did I state that the best system of morality that we could construct would rely on our intuitions/emotions alone (or even to a great extent).

Why is the perpetuation of community and genes moral?

Terrible use of language/syntax here. Being in a healthy community increases the chances of each individuals success. Game theory,etc provide proofs for this. It is not a zero sum game. In order to maintain a healthy community certain systems must be established (i.e morality, ethics).

Yes, I might say such an action is inconsequential. What rules of logic does that position contradict?

Ok, what is stopping you from walking into a school right now and blowing it up....?

 

[John McCain]

Are you a christian?

 

[SnowFox]

Are you a christian?

He wont back down, you should see the useless crap he rants about in the IT threads.

 

[ad infinitum]

Are you a christian?

Nope. Atheist (Although, I dislike having to use that word; as I would dislike having to call my self an 'Aracist'). Good to see you ignored my points again. Your shitty at this debate thing.

EDIT: Nvm. I just saw the picture of 'John McCain' in the picture thread......debate over.

 

[ad infinitum]

He wont back down, you should see the useless crap he rants about in the IT threads.

Hahaha...ha...ha...no

 

[John McCain]

Yes I have justified it. Twice actually. Your asking me to anchor a free floating rational when no such anchor needs to be cast.

Where and how did you justify it? You've stated that biology is the origin of an emotional reaction to suffering/selfishness, but not why it is justified to take any particular action in response to this stimulus, or why an emotional reaction makes the situation right or wrong.

In a very primitive sense, yes. But emotions like these arose before the social aspect of our species matured, and hence are not as strongly tied to questions of morality as emotions like love, guilt, etc (which developed after/during the social ontogenesis of our species).

I don't see how the order in which they arose makes the more primitive emotions any less valid as a guide to morality, if that is what you are going to argue. Anger and competitiveness still play major roles in contemporary human social interaction.

What do you mean when you say they are "not as strongly tied to questions of morality". It seems to me that many decisions people make on a daily basis are influenced by feelings of anger and competitiveness.

I simply stated that mechanisms like guilt supported the idea of some kinds of moral truths.

To which I countered that the existence of negative and violent emotions invalidates the use of emotion as means to judge any particular moral action, to any extent.

How can the existence of guilt be evidence to support the existence of moral truth, when competing emotions exist that support an opposite truth?

Terrible use of language/syntax here. Being in a healthy community increases the chances of each individuals success. Game theory,etc provide proofs for this. It is not a zero sum game. In order to maintain a healthy community certain systems must be established (i.e morality, ethics).

Why is it good to be 'successful'? Why is it good to live in a healthy community?

Ok, what is stopping you from walking into a school right now and blowing it up....?

This is kind of a redundant question, I already said, whether I engage in such an action or not is inconsequential.

 

[John McCain]

Nope. Atheist (Although, I dislike having to use that word; as I would dislike having to call my self an 'Aracist'). Good to see you ignored my points again. Your shitty at this debate thing.

EDIT: Nvm. I just saw the picture of 'John McCain' in the picture thread......debate over.

let me tell you about my long haired opponent...

 

[lolokay]

Straight out I can't accept that something is "moral" merely because of the context. Particularly I can't accept the inverse; something is immoral because of the context.That would surely mean that left handers, homosexuals and de facto couples were in fact immoral at some point in time if not any more.

depending on how you interpret "relative", this is not necessarily the case.

I view it as, rather than meaning "whatever someone says is wrong, is wrong. nothing is really more right or wrong thatn anything else", something similar to ad infinitum's description of "moral realism, i.e.

To ask whether a given action is right or wrong is really to ask whether it will tend to create greater well-being, or greater suffering, for oneself and others. And there seems little doubt that there are right and wrong answers here. This is not to say that there will always be a single right answer to every moral question, but there will be a range of appropriate answers, as well as answers that are clearly wrong. Asking whether or not an action is good or bad may be like asking whether a given substance is "healthy" or "unhealthy" to eat: there are, of course, many foods that are appropriate to eat, but there is also a biologically important (and objective) distinction between food and poison. This is Moral Realism.

here we have a principle which we work towards (in this case, "well-being", though this is of course diffilcult to define). there are multiple ways of achieving this, varying in their 'goodness', and to find out which course of action will be the more good one, we must take into account the external factors surrounding the situation (which I interpret as being a relative approach)

So far you've only done so by your appeal to emotion and intuition.

I feel that, in consideration of ethics, the only thing we really have to base anything on is ourexperience; we sometimes are in a state of positive being, or happiness, and regard 'right' as being actions that promote this, whereas 'wrong' actions shift things to the negative experience side.

I don't particular like his arguments either, but given that we are discussing something with foundations in our experience, it is very difficult to express it in a logical form.

Perhaps something akin to Pascal's wager could be used here? We should assume that good/bad exists and make our best efforts to achieve higher levels of goodness, for if we are right, for if we are right then we are able to ascend into higher levels of 'goodness', which by its definition is a good thing; and if we are wrong, and good/bad does not exist at all, then nothing has been gained or lost anyway. (a very crude attempt, I know)

Even though, when viewing the infinitude of existence, pursuing such a thing seems absurd, the fact that we can feel the benefits of it makes it seem like something worth pursuing (yes, this is just intuition). What else do we have?

nihilism

I don't know if my interpretation of the term is accurate, but I like to think I follow nihilism, in that I assume any concept we have to be flawed (including any view of morals), and so attempt to overcome them for a clearer view of reality. (I think buddhism says a very similar thing)

However, when I try and transcend the notion of good/bad, in its relation to happiness/unhappiness, I always fail. It seems to me that there really is no other option, and that this is indeed truth, absurd as it is...

 

[ad infinitum]

depending on how you interpret "relative", this is not necessarily the case.

I view it as, rather than meaning "whatever someone says is wrong, is wrong. nothing is really more right or wrong thatn anything else", something similar to ad infinitum's description of "moral realism, i.e.

What you wrote doesn't make sense. Please define wrong.

here we have a principle which we work towards (in this case, "well-being", though this is of course diffilcult to define). there are multiple ways of achieving this, varying in their 'goodness', and to find out which course of action will be the more good one, we must take into account the external factors surrounding the situation (which I interpret as being a relative approach)

How is that the relative approach? that is the realist's approach...

I feel that, in consideration of ethics, the only thing we really have to base anything on is ourexperience; we sometimes are in a state of positive being, or happiness, and regard 'right' as being actions that promote this, whereas 'wrong' actions shift things to the negative experience side.

Indeed our experience (and the experience of others) is important to us. Improving this is innate it us (this occurs through cultural evolution). Why is it important to us? Because living in a healthy community is more beneficial to its members (as it increases the chance of there successfully passing on their genes). Symbiosis is not a zero sum game.

I don't particular like his arguments either, but given that we are discussing something with foundations in our experience, it is very difficult to express it in a logical form.

It's easy to understand through logic (evolution, game theory, etc), furthermore reason explains why these emotions occurs, how they arose and why they are important to place value on (or perhaps ignore).

Perhaps something akin to Pascal's wager could be used here? We should assume that good/bad exists and make our best efforts to achieve higher levels of goodness, for if we are right, for if we are right then we are able to ascend into higher levels of 'goodness', which by its definition is a good thing; and if we are wrong, and good/bad does not exist at all, then nothing has been gained or lost anyway. (a very crude attempt, I know)

No need..anyway, everyone (except those that lack the neurology- i.e psychopaths/sociopaths) is a functional moral realist, like most people are functional atheist's, the only debate that occurs over this is on the intellectual level, not the pragmatic, etc.

Even though, when viewing the infinitude of existence, pursuing such a thing seems absurd, the fact that we can feel the benefits of it makes it seem like something worth pursuing (yes, this is just intuition). What else do we have?

Seek out pleasure because we are hardwired to do so. Yep.

I don't know if my interpretation of the term is accurate, but I like to think I follow nihilism, in that I assume any concept we have to be flawed (including any view of morals), and so attempt to overcome them for a clearer view of reality. (I think buddhism says a very similar thing)

Reaching non duality of the mind, or 'nirvana', etc, is completely compatible with moral realism. Has nothing to do with Nihilism; actually quite the opposite.

However, when I try and transcend the notion of good/bad, in its relation to happiness/unhappiness, I always fail. It seems to me that there really is no other option, and that this is indeed truth, absurd as it is...

Its not absurd. Perhaps if you think of it in the same way that'tone' can transcend 'language'.

 

[lolokay]

What you wrote doesn't make sense. Please define wrong.

if you're referring to the part I put in quotation marks, then that's a view that doesn't make sense to me either

How is that the relative approach? that is the realist's approach...

as I said: ' depending on how you interpret "relative" '
eg. definitions include
- something dependent upon external conditions for its specific nature, size, etc. (opposed to absolute ).
- considered in relation to something else; comparative: the relative merits of democracy and monarchy.

Indeed our experience (and the experience of others) is important to us. Improving this is innate it us (this occurs through cultural evolution). Why is it important to us? Because living in a healthy community is more beneficial to its members (as it increases the chance of there successfully passing on their genes). Symbiosis is not a zero sum game.

It's easy to understand through logic (evolution, game theory, etc), furthermore reason explains why these emotions occurs, how they arose and why they are important to place value on (or perhaps ignore).

I don't feel that these things really get at the why? of ethics. they all seem like rather arbitrary conditions, which could be similarly applied to many things.

No need..anyway, everyone (except those that lack the neurology- i.e psychopaths/sociopaths) is a functional moral realist, like most people are functional atheist's, the only debate that occurs over this is on the intellectual level, not the pragmatic, etc.

I think there is a need. Even if you were right and "everyone is a functional moral realist", it is still the case that people do not act in the best way they can.

I think you mentioned that this is an area that research should be done in, so we can learn more about how to achieve this good - and I think having a solid reason as to why we should do this is of great importance.

Seek out pleasure because we are hardwired to do so. Yep.

we're hard wired to do many things. I certainly wouldn't advocate doing whatever our instincts tell us to do.

Reaching non duality of the mind, or 'nirvana', etc, is completely compatible with moral realism. Has nothing to do with Nihilism; actually quite the opposite.

as I said, I don't know if my interpretation of the term is a legitimate one
To me, it is not a claim that "nothing is better than anything else, nothing has purpose, so I may as well do whatever the hell I want", but a process of thought, where you see past false ideas so that a more clear picture of reality will emerge.

 

[John McCain]

I feel that, in consideration of ethics, the only thing we really have to base anything on is ourexperience; we sometimes are in a state of positive being, or happiness, and regard 'right' as being actions that promote this, whereas 'wrong' actions shift things to the negative experience side.

I once had opportunity to ask Mark H. Pritchard, leading expert on gnosticism, his thoughts about relative and absolute truth.

He responded that the only truth we might be certain of is our immediate sensory perception. We can observe that our sensory experience is true, and choose how we wish to react to this. Being actively conscious of your sensory experience, and aware of how your perceptions are influencing your behaviour, decisions, and emotions is essential if you wish to maximize the extent to which your life follows your personal moral framework.

This is not to say that any particular response to this sensory experience, any particular action is justified. While the sensory experience may be the most certain truth available, individuals may choose to have different and opposite reactions to this experience, and the appropriateness of their response is entirely relative to the individual.

Even though, when viewing the infinitude of existence, pursuing such a thing seems absurd, the fact that we can feel the benefits of it makes it seem like something worth pursuing (yes, this is just intuition). What else do we have?

Yeah, even though it seems to be ultimately futile, you may as well follow the influences of human intuition if only because they are the path of least resistance.

 

[John McCain]

What's wrong with my picture anyway?

 

[lolokay]

What's wrong with my picture anyway?

well, what if you're wrong, and some states really are preferable to others?

if you're right, it makes no difference how you view things, or act, anyway

 

[John McCain]

How do you reliably determine what those states are though? Same reason pascals wager fails. You can't be sure you're following the right god, the right religion, the right values, or that god will reward and not punish his worship etc...

How can you know you're not choosing incorrectly and picking a less preferable state?

Following pascals wager is a false exercise in probability, you may be equally likely to worsen your situation.