by Lukeprog
“Without God, how can you have objective moral values?”
Many atheists roll their eyes at this. Of course moral values can exist without God. We don’t need God to tell us that rape and murder are wrong.
But when atheists are pressed to explain precisely how objective moral values exist, they have a hard time with it.
False Grounds of Morality
Pullquote: Appealing to an invisible moral sense instead of evolution is like appealing to Zeus to explain lightning.
Of course, Christian morality is doomed because it grounds morality in something that doesn’t exist: the commands of God.
But atheistic morality does little better. Let me explain.
Some atheists say that morality is about maximizing well-being or complexity or happiness because these things have intrinsic value. But what is intrinsic value? How do you detect it? If we could freeze an act of kindness in time and crack it open, would we find a glowing orb inside called “intrinsic value”? Intrinsic value, it seems, is mysterious and undetectable, and it’s odd to see so many atheists embrace it after having just rejected God for being mysterious and undetectable.
Others think morality is about a hypothetical social contract, perhaps one we would agree to behind a “veil of ignorance” about what lot in life we will be given. But a hypothetical contract is no more real than a hypothetical God, and cannot serve as the ground of morality.
Still others say morality is about the fulfillment of certain rights or duties, such as the right to life or the duty not to harm. But where do these rights and duties come from? How do we know which rights and duties there are? They seem to be invisible, and as atheists like to point out, “The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.”
Some atheists think we can know what is right and wrong because we can sense them with the “conscience” – a mysterious sixth sense that can directly detect moral values. But no such cognitive faculty has ever been found, and we don’t even know what, exactly, it’s supposed to be detecting.
In fact, our moral beliefs are quite easily explained by biological and cultural evolution. Appealing to an invisible moral sense instead of evolution to explain our moral beliefs is like appealing to Zeus to explain lightning after we already know how electric charge works.
So what does this mean? Is morality just a trick played on us by our genes?
I think not.
Reasons for Action
Pullquote: God may be dead, but morality need not die with him. Morality existed long before man invented God, and morality will continue without him.
Morality is about reasons for action. Reasons for action to feed the poor. Reasons for action to not torture children.
The problem with most moral theories is that they refer to reasons for action that do not exist: God’s commands, intrinsic values, hypothetical contracts, invisible rights and duties, etc.
But reasons for action do exist. Put your hand on a hot stove and try to tell me there is no reason for action to move your hand.
But which reasons for action do exist?
Desires exist. They are brain states. Soon, neuroscientists will be able to map and measure them directly in the brain. Desires are the reasons for action that exist.
Some things tend to fulfill desires. Other things tend to thwart desires. This is where good and bad come from. They come from the only reasons for action that exist: desires. It is an objective fact about the world that desires exist, and that certain things tend to fulfill desires while other things tend to thwart them.
Desire-based theories of morality are all the rage in moral philosophy today. I think one of them in particular is more plausible than the others. It is called desire utilitarianism. You can read about it here.
God may be dead, but morality need not die with him. Morality existed long before man invented God, and morality will continue without him.
Lukeprog is an IT consultant from Los Angeles, California. He writes about philosophy of religion and meta-ethics at Common Sense Atheism.
I don’t have much to add to this, but good post. Morality is an interesting topic, and maybe someday I’ll read that 43 page document. >> I have too much other stuff to read right now to start on that.
I think he is over complicating something that is quite simple. My morality comes from my ability to empathise. Do I want to be tortured, maimed or killed? Do I want all of my hard earned possesions stolen? Of course I don’t. Therefore it is blatantly obvious to me that other people would feel the same if they were to become victims.
Not that I have a desire to do any of those things anyhow, but that’s probably because I’m not religious (repressed).
Yes, but you are forgetting that, when you were a child, your ability to empathise was not so strong. You have to learn first to put yourself in the other persons shoe, that’s not innate.
Try to explain a child why they cannot stole his neighbour their favourite toy. Would you like him to stole you? Not, but that’s not the question, why should I repress my desire to have it? Should I expect that, if I stole his toy, he will steal from me another thing? Should I expect that, if I don’t do that, he won’t stole from me? That’s the social contract but it’s not innate, when we were childs we learned those rules and we learned to trust society.
But I think the way we learned that was reward/punishment.
“But I think the way we learned that was reward/punishment.” – Pretty much Christian indoctrination but without heaven and hell, then!
I think so. A religion simplifies the answer to the question “why shouldn’t I…”. You shouldn’t because someone will judge you, and he can see all you are doing -and thinking, wow. Call it God or “karma”.
We all have been indoctrined -even in atheists families- with that idea about a fair universe, where you are going to be punished or rewarded by your actions; it keeps we inside society’s rules even when we think our “crime” won’t be noticed by anyone.
Why is bad to lie? “Liers always get caught”. False. But when your parents caught you in a lie they will punish you. When we are older, we have learned that once you have been caught in a lie he/she won’t trust you again, so objectively it’s about an expected reward and a potential punishment, game’s theory. But with our indoctrination since childs we have -inconsciounsly- accepted that is better to avoid lying, so we usually don’t need to think, before answering any question, if it would be better to ansewr lying. So “it is bad to lie” is a learned dogma.
Heaven and Hell seem to me to be the ultimate in grade inflation, or one-upmanship. “If you don’t obey me you’ll be punished. And it will be infinitely bad punishment, and it will go on infinitely long.”
Good post. The book “Think and Grow Rich” (a business related book) is based on Desires – desire to be rich, healthy, ect. And by having those designers, you (sub)consciously put a plan into action in order to achieve those desires. Common sense really. But from the Christian fanatics I’ve dealt with my entire life, they seem to be lacking that.
Then to add to what Mike said, Then to live in a society we have some of are morals shaped to fit in with the group. Because doing everything Mike said helps the society stay together(to survive). You can not have people getting raped and murdered before your neighbors slip out in the night to find a safer place to live and raise their family. There is no need of religion there. That does not mean religions do not get to stick there nose in societal morals, they do. They just do not get to take credit for something they do not deserve.
The beginning of the article doesn’t seem to match up with the end.
“But atheistic morality does little better. Let me explain”
snip
“In fact, our moral beliefs are quite easily explained by biological and cultural evolution. Appealing to an invisible moral sense instead of evolution to explain our moral beliefs is like appealing to Zeus to explain lightning after we already know how electric charge works.”
I feel like my first natural response to that first quote, pretty much was the second quote. Evolution is not exactly atheism. However, they do go hand in hand often enough. I still like the way you fleshed out the rest of it, but give us a little more credit. I am always skeptical of anything that ‘can’t be defined’. I witheld judgement on this issue until I read up on cultural evolution in a few books. Now I’m confident that whatever that is left to be discovered will be discovered, eventually (neuroscience, as you mentioned, is an excellent example).
Good article though.
Yes, I agree with the mismatch, but for me it was the claim for objective morals then the claim that morals evolve. This is contradictory. There are NO moral objectives, only morals that evolve as society does.
Yep. I second that. There aren’t any objective moral facts. If morals were objective, we would agree on them a lot more.
God either exists or not -or maybe he is in an intermediate state, of course- objectively and we are far from agreeing about It.
Hmmm… Schrödinger’s God… I like it!
Inside the box, God is both alive and dead.
till you check it, then it collapses to a state, wich one? :-)
So far? Still dead.
I could not agree more…
I disagree.
Morals could be objective, but our moral sense could be slightly incompetent.
Lukeprog uses the example of quantum physics: it seems counter-intuitive to individuals, and does violence to our intuitions about how physics should be, but it is documented by evidence. The same could be true for objective morality — the moral objectives discovered hypothetically by no means have to match our moral intuitions.
And try to recall all of the moral intuitions we’ve had in the past that we’ve abandoned….that slavery was okay, that repressing women was okay, that animal sacrifice was okay. Is one state the same as another? I don’t think so.
I disagree with that, supporting LRA’s standpoint. Because if I understand your counter-argument correctly, you say that while we don’t have any evidence (“the moral objectives discovered hypothetically”), there could still be moral absolutes (“Morals could be objective”). I really hope I did not misunderstand you, nor that I misquoted you, but I think this topic is a little too important to just assume that I didn’t get your point.
Seeking for another analogy in physics, the following idea came across my mind:
If there is any chance for objective, absolute knowledge of reality, it must be deducable from a handful of fundamental truths (i.e. natural constants). Therefore, objective knowledge must use the least possible amount of given parameters and explain the largest possible amount of observable phenomena (i.e. laws of nature). Hence, any objective, absolute moral would be in some way logically linked to these basic foundations of reality. You could now argue that evolution offers this like, but at least to me this would not be convincing. Morals, should they be objective, should possess a universal quality, that is, they should influence something throughout the universe in a (hopefully) observable manner. Otherwise, they would only be an untestable hypothesis (like the existence of gods).
I hope this makes some sense to you.
So Occams Razor is the search for Morality AND Truth?
But the natual constants are not independent sources – they are interconnected.
As far as I know, the natural constants are fundamental because they are (apparently) notinterconnected. If so, they would be derived constants.
For using Occam’s Razor on something like morality, I don’t actually see any reason why the foundation of moral should escape this handy and beautiful tool.
For truth, I refute the existence of any “real”, absolute, objective truth, since it cannot be proven. There are many truths out there, and they often contradict each other, but I see no evidence, no reason, and no necessity for an absolute objective truth. So O.R. does not apply, since it is, to me, not plausible in the beginning.
The fundamental constants of the universe ARE derived – they are derived from the universe! They are not thought up a priori, they come from observation.
It’s illogical to say that the area occupied by the electron cloud of a hydrogen atom (fundamental constant one: the size of atoms in general) is not related to the strength of the pull between the electron and the proton (fundamental constant two: the important thingy that makes chemistry work). Seperating them is the basis of the fine-tuning arguement. Some of them are what they are because they have to be, given that the ones that they interact with.
Like the relationship of a circle’s radius to its circumference. Envisioning the fundamental constants as finely-tuned knobs has always seemed to me like poor imagination. Maybe they are fixed by definition and “knobs” is a completely inaccurate metaphor.
Devysciple
“Because if I understand your counter-argument correctly, you say that while we don’t have any evidence (”the moral objectives discovered hypothetically”), there could still be moral absolutes (”Morals could be objective”).”
lukeprog is making no argument for moral absolutes only that morality is objective. These are not the same. In science we seek the best provisional but defeasible explanations but these are not absolute nor should we expect any different here in morality. To assume or demand otherwise is unreasonable.
Hey Tele…whatever happened to Wintermute?? I used to enjoy our conversations but haven’t seen him around since I returned, just wondering.
Pharynkgee
“There aren’t any objective moral facts. If morals were objective, we would agree on them a lot more.”
This does not follow. For example, there are objective facts about evolution but many people still believe in creationism or intelligent design. Lack of agreement is not indicative of a lack of an objective basis.
lukeprog’s argument is for an objective basis to morality but you have not directly engaged with his argument at all.
I would say that the term “But atheistic morality does little better. Let me explain” is rather a misleading or erroneous description rather than a mismatch to later statements regarding evolution. For over 2300 odd years at least philosophers and others have been investigating morality absent god, since god-based morality is hopelessly flawed. A better term might be secular morality? Still these approaches still have flaws even if they are fewer than god-based morality,
I do not agree with the proposed solution.
These ‘desires’ have been vaguely defined at best, unless we are speaking about literal desires, then the article is bullshit: western society thrives on the fulfillment of ‘desires’ with pretty bad results.
How do you explain that often we get happiness but letting go of our ‘desires’?
Inner peace and true happiness are the goals.
Why?
Because they are non-exclusive (rather, they are inclusive), they make you feel good on the long term, are independent of the situation and allow you to face death with a smile.
Well, he is using the word desires the way the philosophers do. There is much talk in philosophy about beliefs and desires as mental contents:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/#HumTheRea
Ah!
I was expecting something like “evolution made us this way, therefore we must be intrinsically moral” or some non-answer like that. I was already ready to point out about desire utilitarianism, when I saw the “Reasons for Action” subtitle… What a nice surprise!
This is a really nice philosophical theory!
I’d propose an even simpler explanation for morality: pure evolution. Leave out that vagueness about desires. Humans as a species have evolved into beings centered around small communities, like wolves. For these communities to function, certain social rules must be established. Humans who adhere better to these social rules have an evolutionary advantage over humans who do not adhere so well. Over time these social rules developed into what we now call morality and ethics.
Agreed. But I do think that more than just evolutionary theory alone can help to specifically map out our higher brain functions, love, hate, desire, etc. I liked that Luke mentioned forward-thinking neuroloscience as one potential. I would think there are probably even more areas of science that will (or already have) help to understand this. I’m not really looking for a philosophical way to determine it, so I must admit I’m probably not going to read the paper he linked to. (sorry, Luke, just not my thing.)
But, I really do agree with you. It doesn’t seem like such a mystery to me. Evolution IS how we got here, and we have morality (I prefer the word ‘ethics’ but no biggie). ‘Why’ our evolutionary path gave us morality seems like an answerable question already. But, even if the ‘why’ isn’t known, we still know the ‘if’ (yes, our evolutionary path yielded morals).
There seems to be some confusion about what I’m claiming.
Mike, you say that your morality comes from your ability to empathize. That’s fine, but it seems you’re talking about the reasons you DO act morally or WANT to act morally, not an explanation for how objective moral value actually exists in the universe.
Francesco Orsenigo, I am not proposing that we simply try to fulfill all our desires for hot dogs and snow cones and such. Though desires are the only reasons for action that exist, there is a lot more to be said about what is right and wrong, good and evil… and to find out what I mean you’ll have to read my little ebook that explains the whole theory. :)
Adamus,
There are many problems with evolutionary theory of morality, but one is that they face a Euthyphro dilemma. “Is something good because it is loved by my genes, or do my genes love it because it is good?” The second option seems unlikely, as there is no apparent selective advantage to having a cognitive faculty that accurately perceives invisible moral properties. But the first makes morality to be totally arbitrary. We evolved to act violently toward each other when our reproduction is threatened, therefore it is good to act violently when our reproduction is threatened. Etc.
“There are many problems with evolutionary theory of morality…”
Maybe so. I can tell you have researched this more than I have. But here is how I would re-frame the issue:
1) Humans evolved. FACT.
2) Humans have morals. FACT (I still like the term ethics, but whatever, minor quibble)
3) Therefore: Our evolutionary path led to humans with morals. FACT (well, this is the logical conclusion I come to anyway.)
4) Now we want to know exactly ‘why’ we evolved morals, and there are many scientists on the case. The answer may come soon (or rather, a more comprehensive answer.)
I’m already satisfied, but that’s because I’m not really into philosophy, or even neuroscience. I tend to be a biology/astronomy/physics nerd.
Humans evolved a moral sense. They evolved to think that certain things are right or wrong.
And of course the moral sense could be to some degree unreliable. Why should our evolved moral sense necessarily correspond to objective truth 100% of the time?
Our senses are unreliable all the time. People are very bad at statistics (especially some types of statisics). The 3-door puzzle is provable with Excell but hardly anyone gets it on intuition. Likewise with optical illusions.
“We evolved to act violently toward each other when our reproduction is threatened, therefore it is good to act violently when our reproduction is threatened. Etc.”
Yes, but we also evolved to act in cooperation when our reproduction is threatened (agriculture, nomadic tribes, etc.), therefor it is good to act in cooperation when our reproduction is threatened.
I think our morals probably had to evolve a little with each breakthrough in tribe/group size, though this is purely speculation. The Nation-State is a pretty recent advancement, on the geologic timescale. Surely we are still working out the kinks (war after war), no?
“But the first makes morality to be totally arbitrary”
So what? Why couldn’t be morality totally arbritary?
I keep thinking it’s an “agreement” (an equilibrium in evolutionary terms) between individual reproduction interests and groupal reproduction interests.
Cooperation may improve my reproduction chances, and the reproduction chances of another member of my group, who shares with me an important part of my genes.
I believe we need to be careful about this approach. Ethical perspective is a product of success constrained brain changes through the process of evolution in discrete local environments. There is no uniform human (brain unified) morality is there? Different parts of the brain seem to be struggling against other parts. The idea of a unified morality cuts against the grain of diversity. Humans lie along a bell curve ethically. Motivations for the position that each individual hold to place them along that curve are almost certainly complex. I’m skeptical that desire explains human motivation in toto or even proximately. We don’t know enough about the interactions of the sub-conscious with the conscious or about the genetics of ethics. Human motivation has been extended from more and more complex substrata as animals act to survive over the past 3 billion years.
It’s probably a fool’s errand to chase after umbrella explanations instead of doing the slow research on each of the neurological sites related to motivation. The above paragraph could be organized better and explained more precisely but since I don’t often think about this, it would take me a lot of time I don’t have today.
By the way Luke, how do you explain the findings of The Trolley Car Experiments in relation to desire?
Trolley Car Experiments tell us something about what we evolved to feel about right and wrong. They tell us nothing about what IS right and wrong.
You are over thinking this, or over reaching.
“…What we evolved to feel about right and wrong” <– keyword is ‘WE’. That is to say, humans evolved to feel this way about morals. That should be the end of it. However, you go on to say
“They tell us nothing about what IS right and wrong.” Your assigning values to Humans AND Aliens here it seems. Like some aliens or robots might logically think the trolley experiment through and react differently to certain scenarios. And if you weren’t talking about a third-party test subject, you seem to be assigning some unknowable truth variable to morality.
Bah, these kinds of things are what keeps me from getting heavily into philosophy. Stick with the science. You had the right answer already. It’s like William Lane Craig’s debate tactics got into your head and your original article is a counter-argument. It’s probably a successful counter-argument, on the basis of philosophy and what not. However, thats how he works. He does a little mindfuck dance with your philosophy-based arguements, just to sidetrack his opponent (and the audience) from realizing how science has already put the nail in the coffin on creationism, intelligent design, etc.
I hope you’re not offended at my speculations in regards to WLC, I’m sure you have a genuine love of philosophy as well.
Japanther
” That is to say, humans evolved to feel this way about morals. That should be the end of it. However, you go on to say”
Why should this be the end of it?
“Your assigning values to Humans AND Aliens here it seems. Like some aliens or robots might logically think the trolley experiment through and react differently to certain scenarios.”
Yes that is moral psychology, seeking accurate descriptions of how we think about morals but that does not answer a plausible question what IS morality.
“Stick with the science.”
That is what this approach recommends. Luke can criticise what I call secular (he calls atheist) moral theories because they are mostly philosophically not empirically based. Philosophy can only get you so far.
Thank you. I see what you mean.
If you change the second part to ‘do my genes reflect the finding of it because it is advantageous’ then there doesn’t seem to be a problem any more.
Luke:
Does it? Moral values seem quite variable between cultures and individuals.
Agreed. I’d go further than just cultures and individuals: species. We all know that the brainy mammals have their own social heirchy, and I would call that at least some sense of rudimentary ethics. Elephants going on revenge stampedes through villages; dogs can express emotions; primates etc…
The most interesting one that I found (via Dawkins) was Dictyostelium discoideum. It is an amoeba that seems to have selfless and selfish attributes. It is known I was going to link the wiki article, but it’s a bit technical, I’d recommend reading the part from Dawkin’s Ancestor’s Tale. (the fungus chapter I believe.) He explained that many of its cell’s program themselves for death, martyring themselves to make way for other cells to reproduce. These other cells are identical, and they are seperate spores that form a colony-amoeba. All built on the backs of selfless martyrs. Interesting huh?
Taking a historical approach, human beings started out as pack animals living in groups in which all individuals were intimately acquainted and are now living as herd animals in densities matched by only a few large mammals. The limits of acceptable behavior are much more constrained now than they would have been in Persia in 1000 BC or Europe in 1000 AD. This is simply a factual observation: no society as large and complex as ours could exist if its people treated each other as hunter gatherer societies do.
At an individual level, people learn what constitute desirable and undesirable behaviors by observation of the outcomes of their own actions and those of others. The outcome of behaving like a 4th century Gaul in modern Manhattan would be undesirable by most standards, and so people behave differently in modern Manhattan than they did in medieval France. However, the ultimate determinant of what constitutes a desirable action versus an undesirable reaction is still subjective, and one person’s desirable outcome may still be undesirable for others. And in some cases, it seems that people’s desires can be widely aberrant relative the desires of the rest of society (serial killers, for instance).
Generating undesirable outcomes for aberrant behaviors is exactly the function of the legal system, by the way.
Also: Thanks, Daniel for accepting my guest post!
By the way, you have an excellent blog design. I’m jealous.
“If we could freeze an act of kindness in time and crack it open, would we find a glowing orb inside called “intrinsic value”? ”
Umm… No. This sentence was obviously written by someone with no idea what words mean. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but that was my reaction. WTF? We CAN’T “freeze” an “act”, of any kind, nor “crack it open”, any more than a colorless green idea can sleep furiously. (thx, Chomsky!)
“Intrinsic Value” does not exist (because you can’t TOUCH it), but “Desire” does exist? If I “Crack open” my relationship with my wife, is “desire” a “Glowing Orb”? Nope. So how is the concept of desire any more real than the concept of value? They can even be used as synonyms in some contexts! I “value” comic books, and I “desire” them too.
The rest of the article may have been great, but my brain couldn’t recover from that sentence. I will try to re-read it, along with the links, after a period of healing.
I think the problem is what “intrinsic” means, it’s not a problem with “value”. Has an action a value on its own, not for its expected results?
it isn’t a tangible or visible “glowing orb” in any case, and if that is one’s standard for proof, then there are a lot of things that don’t exist. Like “brain states” and desires, and intelligence, and truth, and beauty, hope, and joy, etc…
I realize it was intended as a rhetorical device, but it was clumsily used.
That’s fine if you don’t like my caricature. :)
My point is this: What is intrinsic value? I can tell you what a desire is. It’s a brain state. It’s a motivational attitude toward a proposition. But what is intrinsic value? Nobody has given me a reason to think intrinsic values exist.
Intrinsic value is the worth a thing has simply for being the thing it is. A stock certificate may have a value of hundreds of dollars attached to it, but its intrinsic value is that of a pretty piece of paper. The value of that paper will vary depending on who you are dealing with, and how much they like paper. If they don’t “desire” paper, then they will not “value” the paper much.
The phrase “intrinsic value” is only useful in contrast to “attached value”, where a thing has a value symbolically or legally attached to it, greater (or in some cases less) than the value of the thing itself. The intrinsic value of the metals in a U.S. one cent piece is actually greater than the legal, economic, “value” of a penny.
That’s it. intrinsic value is not a tangible thing, nor does it need to be a specific, universally-agreed-upon amount. It’s just a thing’s value, in and of itself.
“I can tell you what a desire is. It’s a brain state. It’s a motivational attitude toward a proposition”
OK, now you have to tell me what a motivation is, what an attitude is, and what a proposition is.
If I said “I have been given no reason to believe that attitudes exist”, how would you respond? After all, if you crack me open, you cannot point to my “attitude” as a tangible, real thing.
It’s the same thing you did with intrinsic value.
I would say those things are phenomenal in nature. The brain state is the phenomenon that runs on the wetware called our brain. It is the manifestation of certain neurons lining up and firing in a certain pattern. So, you are correct that I can’t look inside your brain and see an attitude. :) I tend to line up with the representationalists on this matter:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-representational/
Pharyngkee
“OK, now you have to tell me what a motivation is, what an attitude is, and what a proposition is.”
Well if you want to be eliminativist about beliefs, desires and dispositions that is fine. However unless you can provide an alternatives – and no-one AFAIK has to date – the wise choice is to continue to use the best provisional and defeasible model which is beleif-desire psychology.
“If I said “I have been given no reason to believe that attitudes exist”, how would you respond?”"
Your question is self-refuting. Since a belief is an attitude, the asking of this question itself gives you a reason to believe that attitudes exist. How could you believe that attitudes do not exist without have the attitude that attitudes do no exist?
” After all, if you crack me open, you cannot point to my “attitude” as a tangible, real thing.” ”
False analogy.A brain is a dynamic process, we can see what this process is constituted – neurones, dendrites, axons etc. when cracked open – but it is only the dynamic operation – when it is not cracked open- within which such things as attitudes, propositions could be said occur.
“It’s the same thing you did with intrinsic value.”
Another false analogy. We have a far better handle on brain processes though neuroscience, cognitive psychology and cognitive science and there is nothing, by comparison, for such things as “intrinsic value”.
I’d recommend reading Kai Nielsen’s Ethics Without God.
Kai Nielsen in Ethics Without God just asserted that certain things are right or wrong, without explaining how.
Later, in “Atheism, Morality and Meaning” (by Martin, 2002), Nielsen admits that moral realism is a “myth”, that the “torturing of innocents” is not really evil, and that “wife beating of child molesting” is not really wrong.
My morality comes from my personal philosophy. Since I believe this is the only life we get, I believe it is everyone’s responsibility to make sure everyone else can live it comfortably and happily. When I was a kid, I was Catholic and I was good because God and the grown-ups wanted me to be. Now that I’m an adult, I don’t need God to judge me, I can judge myself.
Morality varies from person to person. While adultery is dishonest, I don’t think it’s so horrible of a thing. I think it’s a really low-down thing to sneak around like that, but some people act as if it’s akin to murder. It also depends on the situation. My girlfriend is allowed to cheat on me if she wishes because she lives in a different state and physically, I can’t be there for her.
Sounds like you’re judging adultery based on your unique arrangement with your girlfriend, to me. If you’ve prearranged that cheating’s okay, that’s one thing. But, if you’ve promised life-long fidelity and then break it, that’s another story.
That said, I’m obviously judging adultery based on my arrangement with my wife, i.e., lifelong fidelity.
Like I said, it depends on the situation. I was stating my situation, not saying that’s the standard for all circumstances.
But a hypothetical contract is no more real than a hypothetical God…
Whoa there, pardner. Some things can be wished into thinking. Fiat money, for example. If everyone agreed to a system of fiat money, it would be “real.” But if everyone agreed that God existed, that would not make Him exist.
Yeah, that part bugged me too. I think the author mistakes the words “hypothetical” with “abstract”. An abstract concept can be real, even if it doesn’t exist in the physical world. Mathematics only exists in our heads and that doesn’t mean they’re not real. So does morality.
Mathematics is a system of conventions. So is morality. Therefore, they are not real. Realism implies existence.
Mathematics are real. They’re not physical. Maybe it wasn’t a good example, but the author claims that the social contract is “hypothetical” and I say it isn’t. I agree morality is a result of evolution. Animals who live in society do so because that increases their chances of survival, and they have their own social contract: they have a hierarchy, they cooperate, and they take care of each other, even if they don’t know why they do it. We are smart enough to articulate those rules into the concept of morality. It’s an abstract concept, but it’s real.
I have never had a ’2′ fall out of my pocket. I have never tasted a ’47′. Because numbers are just ideas/concepts.
But I liked the rest of what you said.
Why is six afraid of seven?
Cause Seven Eight (ate) Nine!
Ha!! 2nd grade rules!!
LOL, good timing. All these intellectual arguments were making my brain hurt (maybe that vodka last night didn’t help either). Oldschool jokes FTW.
It seems that numbers have their own morals. Cannibalism, fear of larger entities, etc…
Agreed. Well spoken, LRA.
Yeah…. The E-book is not a lot better. Sorry, Luke, but you either have a very bad idea, or you have a not-so-bad idea that you are expressing poorly. There is a reason that most philosophical treatises are more than 50 pages long. A case for a concept as all-encompassing as this needs to be built, layer by layer.
I got as far as page 5 before encountering a blazing strawman, and the actual text only started on page 3.
and then this, on page
That third sentence is a completely unsupported assumption.
you keep saying that this or that desire “tends to thwart more and greater
desires than it fulfills, so it is a bad desire.” How do you calculate that? How can you know that you are including ALL the desires of EVERYONE affected, now as well as in the future? Show me any computer capable of crunching that calculation, and I will worship it.
Oh, wait…”Only patient research in neuroscience and related fields will give us the answers.”
So we can’t be moral until then? Oh, well, I guess I will continue following my culturally-adapted conscience until then.
Phrankygee ,
Clearly, my 42-page book is not intended as a thorough philosophical defense of desire utilitarianism!
I do not think that we can calculate whether a desire is good or bad perfectly. Our instruments are not yet that advanced. But that’s okay. We can estimate. There was a time when we could not put a number on temperature, but we could tell when one thing was warmer than another. Over time, our instruments got better.
We have a great deal of moral knowledge, but much will have to wait until our instruments improve, yes. I think it is better to pursue genuine moral knowledge than to switch to a false theory because a true one doesn’t give easy answers.
“I do not think that we can calculate whether a desire is good or bad perfectly”
But you did. You said rape is a “bad” desire, and that this was verifiably, objectively true. Prove it. What math do you use to determine that it “tends to thwart more and greater desires”?
Could you give an example of a situation in which your system actually helps make a decision more difficult than “should I rape people?” You only use your method to determine the values that are held in fairly common consensus anyway.
Imagine my baby needs medicine for an earache, but the drugstore is closed, due to a power outage. Should I break in, take the medicine and leave money on the counter? How do you even begin to list, much less evaluate, all the conflicting desires felt by the various parties to this transaction. You are involving at a minimum, your entire household and that of the drugstore owner, but also possibly an entire network of managers, employees, cops, lawyers, witnesses, glass repairmen, etc, and their households.
I submit that your basis of determining moral action is useless in this, and any similarly real-world scenario. It is a “greatest good” theory, with a slightly different vocabulary.
“You are involving at a minimum, your entire household and that of the drugstore owner, but also possibly an entire network of managers, employees, cops, lawyers, witnesses, glass repairmen, etc, and their households.”
….And, ultimately, Kevin Bacon. Where do his desires come into play?
LOL! ;)
That a theory is hard to apply has no bearing on whether or not the theory is true.
True.
The theory may be true. It just isn’t useful, even if it is true.
“When given a choice between things, you should always do the right one” is also true. But it’s worthless, without some way to assign a value to the word “right”.
I can’t prove that there are no gods, either, but no one can prove to me what one is good for, or tell me how it actually affects my life. So if the statement “God is Real” is true, it still doesn’t make it useful, and I can go about my business as if it weren’t.
Why do you say it isn’t useful?
As can be seen from the back seat of a car or from rape porn, many more men desire rape than actually do it. It is counter-intuitive to think that there is a greater desire working at the same time to counter said rape desire. To me the key question is to ask what is actually going on in the brain here. I think it is more valuable to develop this kind of limited hypotheses with testable claims on these issues.
Confucius taught the Golden Rule some 500 years before Jebus.
A sadist is nothing more than a masochist following the golden rule.
Desires may be a good reason but I go with how we are wired.
Mirror Neurons. When I see someone experience pain, I feel pain. When I see someone who’s happy I feel happy. Mirror Neurons and their wiring into my pain and pleasure centers is where my intrinsic morality comes from.
This is why you feel empathy, but how does this explain objective moral facts?
There aren’t any objective moral facts. As you yourself said, morals evolved. Changing morals aren’t objective. That’s a contradiction.
Unless changing imperfect morals evolved to the objective perfect ones (wich I don’t think, but it avoids contradiction)
Yes, but how do we prove them “perfect” in every instance? The problem of induction crops up. So, we have no proof that any morals are perfect, and it is likeley that morals that we hold as “perfect” today will continue to evolve as we do. Who knows what people will think thousands of years from now.
Who knows if people will exist thousands of years from now?
I don’t think there are objective morals ( and I haven’t read the e-book yet, sorry). In fact I was asking Luke -in another comment- how can he be so certain about their necessity. I agree with your conclusion, then, but not with the argument. Even if we don’t know wich are those pretended “objective morals” we could evolve -or be evolving- to them. We could also be evolving to a very wrong morality -some christians will agree with that. The problem is still the same, how do we distinguish the right morality?
BTW, glad to see you here when we were speaking about neuroscience :-)
Aww, thanks! :) Perhaps I should state my case in a less *absolute* sounding way! :) I would argue that there could be objective/absolute/universal things like morals, but how can a limited being such as myself have access to those things? And if they can’t be known, then what use are they to us? I would think that only a mind with complete knowledge could know if there are absolute morals or other absolute things. I doubt very seriously that we will ever be beings with complete knowledge!
We can only approximate from within our life conditions.
Exactly! I agree with both of you. We can’t know about absolute things, unless an all-knowing being reveals them to us, and that doesn’t seem to be happening soon. But that’s not a handicap to do aproximated rules to behave in society. And when morals may fail -because of their relativity- we have still explicit laws who are a social contract. So we as atheists don’t have a daily based problem with moralities (unless a lot of christians there who should follow outdated society rules, who doesn’t always agree with their own nowadays morality).
As for the other question, that would be “where does morality come from” I think it will be explained as a game’s theory -similar to prisonner’s dilemma- at the sight of evolution. As I said before, little groups of apes are usually family related. It’s not only important to pass directly my genes, as my brother has similar genes too and their perpetuation may suppose a selective advantage.
Someone said something similar about the benefits of homosexual animals. It could be that genes with two possible outcomes -the more probable heterosexual and the less probable homosexual, or even different grades of bisexuality- may produce advantages for all the group and so they evolve. Probably an ape with killing tendencies won’t have an stable group to interbreed and survive, so killing is not “moral”; but still we want some agressive members in order to dfend our territory.
The distance between the sun and the earth changes, and yet it is an objective fact.
That’s what LRA is trying to say, (I think).
Morals evolved, therefore there is no ‘true morals’, only the morals of this particular instant in evolution. And the distance between the sun and the earth is only exactly defined at this particular moment in time.
The distance from the earth to the sun is measurable. It also follows certain laws laid down by Newtonian physics. Yes, classical physics and math look very objective– my argument is that knowldege of any kind, scientific or otherwise, is developed from sense experience, and therefore is limited by our human limitations. For this reason, we cannot access these “objectives” you’re talking about. We can never know “reality” until we become gods.
LRA
“There aren’t any objective moral facts. As you yourself said, morals evolved. Changing morals aren’t objective. That’s a contradiction.”
No it is not. A car changes speed, new cars have evolved to travel faster than older models. There is nothing that is not objective about that.
Morality is another type of socially constructed device and the same principle applies. We can evaluate different moral codes at different time and places as we can cars.
Because you were originally created in His image and likeness, and though yet fallen (less than we once were and will yet be again) nevertheless retain charateristic traits and attributes of origin, of Paternity.
I don’t think anyone can really say fully why anyone has the objective morals they do. Morals are to easily changed for them to be considered set. I think arguing about how we got our morals is less fruitful then discussing what are good and bad morals. Yeah I know deciding what are good and bad morals comes from what we believe causes them. I prefer to question what people see as good and bad morals then question where they come from.
“It’s all good” as the saying goes. There might be a few universal “bads”, murder for instance, but not if you’re a cannibal.
Well, murder never seems to apply as a big “wrong”, even to date, if the victim is from another nation we’re at war with. Back in the day it wasn’t exactly wrong to murder for a god – as in a blood sacrifice.
Just sayin’.
More moral questions…
With those “desire” measurement, aren’t you putting the morality of an action in his results?
Let’s say I’m a psycopath who “desires” killing people, I meet a man in the street and I kill him. I understand that my desire of killing shouldn’t worht his desire to life, so the action is bad. But let’s say that he was a christian fundamentalist -for the sake of the argument- and he was going to kill -without me knowing it- 20 childs on a school. So his desire to life should be less valuable than the desires of those 20 childs and their families. So my action, killing a random man on the street, is good.
Our actions have consequences, not always previsible. So at least you have to restrict those “desire measurements” according to the information I have at the moment. Still universal? How is there an “intrinsic value”?
How about my “desire” to have a car -stealing it- and the “desire” of his actual owner to have it?
The morality changes upon the strongueness of our desires? He may be a rich man who have 10 cars, and I may need it to go to work, so my desire is greater and stealing the car is good. I know my “desire”, I can only guess the “desire” of the other people involved in my action.
I think the problem with this whole approach lies in it’s binarity: either it’s good or bad, either your desire is bigger or smaller than mine… That is one of the reasons why I think that absolute morals are not only non-existing, but also a oversimplyfication of actual moral problems.
OK, let’s assume you have a secret desire to kill a christian or steal a car (pure hypothetical, of course!) Why won’t you do it? I think for most of us there would be a myriad of reasons: we emphatise with the victim, we’re afraid of the consequences, we don’t want to bring shame to our family, or we can rationalise that a society where such things happen without any consequences would do us harm ourselves. But these values are not absolute: if the person you want to kill is not a ‘random man on the street’ but part of an oppressing military force that is occupying your home country, the killing may actually be seen by some as an heroic or even admirable act of resistance. To me, all this points to an evolutionary origin of our ethics: we’re social animals, we don’t want to lose the safety of the group we belong to or our position in that group, but we do want to be admired by the others and protect our group against threats from the outside. This is a bit of a quick trot through the topic but I cannot see it otherwise. But then, I haven’t read Lukeprog’s e-book…
Almost all of these reasons point to an evolutionary
Aargh, ignore the very last half sentence. Was I the only one who actually thought the comment preview was an improvement?
You said “OK, let’s assume you have a secret desire to kill a christian” Hmm..anyone particular come to mind there Doc? lol
Did I not say it was a secret desire? ;-)
But actually it was Francesc who came up with the idea of killing a christian fundamentalist… All blame goes to him!
Whew…good cuz I’m the farthest thing from a fundamentalist you will ever find! :)
It was only for the sake of the argument :-)
Fransesc
You seem interested enough but, with all due respect, confused too and I humbly suggest you visit http::/atheistethicist.blogspot.com and pursue the FAQ there to answer these questions. Luke only wrote a very brief introduction here and in his booklet and your questions are not pertinent to the empirical model being proposed and have long been answered.
Thanks, checking…
Francesc
I am happy to answer any of your questions here or I am an active commenter on Fyfe’s blog. You could even ask questions at my own blog where I have also covered desirism (my new preferred label for this model). No Double Standards or, of course, lukeprog’s blog too.
I think trying to claim an objective morality without a god is the wrong argument to make. How can you have an objective morality WITH a god?
From reading the Bible you can see a ton of horrible things that God not only condones but encourages.
Christians don’t get their morality from the Bible. They establish their own definition of right and wrong and then turn to the Bible to justify their actions.
“They establish their own definition of right and wrong and then turn to the Bible to justify their actions”
Indeed, they do. But still, if there is an all-knowing god it exists an objective morality: his morality. A pretty different thing is if we know how he would think about moral questions
How can you have an objective morality WITH a god?
From reading the Bible you can see…
I’d just like to point out that you switched from a general philosophical question to a specific example within one religious tradition.
“Divine command” ethics is vulnerable to the Euthyphro dilemma, so that many theist philosophers who advocate objective morality use the same proposals for non-God-given morality that atheist philosophers do.
I thought christianism solved his Euthyphro dilemma by identifying God and good, and that his actual problem is that you don’t know god’s opinion, so you have to look for those rules just as an atheist has to do
Francesc
I think Christians failed in this resolution of Euthyphro. It just becomes:
“Is it good because it is in god’s nature (or an eternal attribute of it’s eternal nature) or is it in God’s nature (or an eternal attribute of it’s eternal nature) becuase it is good?”
The identity fails because it does not match dimensionally and is more opaque than any earlier attempts to relate god and good (and opacity was the issue the dilemma was originally formed to demonstrate) – that is it is a worse explanation rather than a better one than commands or love. Only in the bizarre Christian mindset does coming up with a worse definition resolve the problem! They need to explain what this attribute is and as soon as they do you end up with the more conventional Euthyphro – I just did a number of posts on this topic on my blog…
On the contrary, I’m framing the question in the context of the current debate. We’re dealing with Christians claim that they have an absolute grasp of right and wrong because of what their god tells them in the Bible and the idea that athiests don’t have an absolute right and wrong. I’m flipping it around and saying that they don’t have an absolute right and wrong either. Their God is an advocate for slavery, rape, incest, and all this other crap that you already know about. You’re told to honor your mother and father at one point and then to hate them at another. Go forth and multiply, but the only way to be happy is to beat your children against the rocks.
Just thinking aloud here. I may desire cheap goods made by slave labor, but I feel immoral whenever I fail to resist the urge to purchase said goods.
Luke,
Are you suggesting that fulfilling desires is always moral?
I think not. Something is moral if a person with good desires would do it. A good desire tends to fulfill more desires than it thwarts. So does rape “tend to fulfill more desires” in a population of 40 rapists and one non-rapist? Imagine a knob with which we could “turn up” or “turn down” desires. What would happen if we turned up the desire to rape in this population? Too horrible to imagine. What if we turned down the desire to rape? No desires thwarted. So rape is not a good desire. Rape is not something a moral person would do.
That’s my understanding of it all.
Too much subjectivity.
I see that Luke says we must estimate. Let’s take the example of buying cheap goods made by slave labor. How do “we” (who is we? everyone in the world over a certain age?) estimate whether or not me buying a t-shirt made in a sweatshop is moral or immoral?
Also, are there degrees of morality/immorality? There must be.
Garrett
“Are you suggesting that fulfilling desires is always moral?”
No he is not. Each desire needs to be evaluated by determining its material and physical effect on all other desires ( or more technically their fulfilment or thwarting) whoever has them without exception or bias. This can determine – however difficult is to do practically (which is an epistemic question) – whether a desire is moral (tends to fulfil desires) , neutral or immoral (tends to thwart other desires).
Morality is one of the expression of humanity. The different colors of morality speak of the diversity of humanity. Christianity is especially cruel to humanity by their claim of morality because of the creation myth.
The gospels put the final nail on the coffin of morality by their(/christianities/churches) claim of life in the afterworld yet living in abundance in this life by deceit while teaching their members the so called true religion of giving…
One way to approach this, I think, is to ask if we humans really need morality and, if so, are there objective facts that establish that need. Do objective, observable facts exist without which human morality would be unnecessary and even useless? After all, earthquakes, volcanoes or lightening have no need for morality; their activities are observably amoral in nature.
One relevant fact is that as humans we are alive and, therefore, subject to the same laws governing any other life form, to wit, we are destructible, we can lose our lives. Another unavoidable fact is that we can consciously choose to kill other members of our species. If not for these two facts alone, we would be indestructible and unable to choose our own actions and if that were so, we would have no need for morality.
So, the conditions of human life and of conscious choice are two objective reasons why we not only need morality, but cannot avoid it. Whether it be asking the time of day or dealing with an errant nation, any action we take with regard to other humans automatically falls into a moral context.
A very interesting way to look at the issue… I’d actually disagree with your conclusion, but I most definitely will spent some time pondering the implications of your approach.
I must hold to my conclusion, believing that because we are “rational animals,” we are unavoidably moral animals since rationality gives us the power to choose between virtuous and vicious acts. In my example of asking the time of day, to give a stranger the time of day indicates a fundamental respect for the needs of others, whereas refusing (“Hey, Buddy, go buy a watch!”) indicates the opposite. The moral significance here seems obvious.
I regret to inform you… that while I have spent some time considering your position, I am still unable to determine whether I agree with it or not. For now, let’s settle for “It’s intriguing to me!”
Ok, consider this: What makes us morally different from other animals? If a lion attacks and kills you, there is no moral issue. If another person attacks and kills you, there certainly is a moral issue. Why? Although the lion may be hunted down and killed because it might attack again, it is not considered a criminal or a murderer, yet the person who attacks and kills you is. Why?
The answer, I think is simple. For other animals, emotions and impulses are behavioral imperativeswhile with humans they are only behavioral incentivessince we have the cognitive power to override them. Whether or not we choose to exert that power is a matter of morality.
Sorry, HTML problems.
The answer, I think is simple. For other animals, emotions and impulses are behavioral imperatives while with humans they are only behavioral incentives since we have the cognitive power to override them. Whether or not we choose to exert that power is a matter of morality.
Being indestructible as a species or life form would be awesome and change a lot of rules.
If all known life forms were indestructible the survival paradigm would be meaningless. Hmmm.
I STRONGLY disagree with the post/paper/theory. I think it harbors the immense danger other dogmatic moral theories have – the writer actually actively urges people to ignore their moral sense because his One Moral Truth says otherwise. This is the dogmatism that leads the religious to justify slavery or genocide becuause God sanctioned it, or the communists to justify work camps and executions.
I can only join the posters above in beseaching readers to stay in the real world – the world where our brain was fashioned by evolution (cultural as well as genetic) to implement certain heuristics that we call “morality”. Just like each person’s eyesight is slightly different, different people would also have different but still recognizably human morality. These are the things that exist; the search for “objective moral facts” is misguided, what we should be looking for is objective facts about morality.
The principal error of the idea is that it ignores the fact that it is only your own “ought” that motivates YOU. The reasons for your actions are your own “ought” determinations, and the science of morality is the science of how humans actually make these determinations in real-life.
The writer assumes that you should respect all oughts equally, or according to their intensity or so on, but this is just dogmatism. It clearly emerges from some deep-seated moral algorithm valuing equality, but it confuses and obtruses it. It is better to become more self-aware and follow your moral senses more fully, not to obscure them with such oversimplifying rationalizations.
We should look for science to reveal to us the way our brain works, including the way our moral intuitions work. With such an understanding, we could come to shape and better follow our own heart’s desires. Seeking to impose artificial philosophical dogmas only serves to alienate us from our true moral nature.
Desires create as much suffering and harm as they create good. They are amoral. The reason we choose to act on some desires and not others- good or bad(sorry that’s qualitative) is probably due to the subjective view of the survival/happiness benefits of the one acting. The more developed a persons cognition, conditioning from experience and ability to see the full consequences of their actions, the more likely they will ultimately choose the beneficial action for the person acting and others around them, even if it involves delayed gratification or sacrifice.
The ability to realize this for ones self, develop it, refine it, to me, makes us human, with “higher” conciousness.
Survival first, then happiness. A realization of connectedness is also involved. ( We’re the same at some or many levels of our being, person,existence, life, etc.).
First, we can distingish that something is moral even while failing to act according to it. Our moral judgments are seperate from our drives as a whole, and the two can be in conflict.
Second, the distinction is ultimately motivated by the survival of our genes (not ourselves), but we should not confuse proximate and distal causes. Our drives amount to more than the desire for self-preservation.
Finally, the ability to see the ful consequences is important, but there is no magical being guarenteiing the best behaviour for you will be best for everyone else.
Yair
“I STRONGLY disagree with the post/paper/theory. I think it harbors the immense danger other dogmatic moral theories have – the writer actually actively urges people to ignore their moral sense because his One Moral Truth says otherwise.”
There is not such thing as a “One Moral Truth” nor, AFAIK, does lukeprog make any such claim. The same critcims that you apply to lukeprog can be applied back to you, since our moral senses can be unreliable if not inveterately so, still the implication is for everyone to follow their own moral intuition and ignore any evidence and argument that disagree wiht this intuition (or prejudice). Once could then say:-
” This is the dogmatism that leads the religious to justify slavery or genocide becuause God sanctioned it, or the communists to justify work camps and executions.”
“I can only join the posters above in beseaching readers to stay in the real world”
This is what luke is saying, he is advocating a realistic approach to the question of morality,
” – the world where our brain was fashioned by evolution (cultural as well as genetic) to implement certain heuristics that we call “morality”. Just like each person’s eyesight is slightly different, different people would also have different but still recognizably human morality. These are the things that exist;”
As are our capacities for beliefs, desires and dispositions.
“the search for “objective moral facts” is misguided, what we should be looking for is objective facts about morality.”
Again this is what Luke is arguing for. Contrary to stereotypical objective morality, he is saying there are no basic objective moral facts above and beyond the natural and real facts. There are no moral facts that are no reducible to other facts.
“The principal error of the idea is that it ignores the fact that it is only your own “ought” that motivates YOU. The reasons for your actions are your own “ought” determinations, and the science of morality is the science of how humans actually make these determinations in real-life.”
There is no error, this approach is based on this fact! Morality uses the social forces of praise and blame, reward and punishment to mold desires – to encourage s desire that one lacks, or discourage desires that one has, but no-one can ever operate on anything but their own “oughts”. This approach gives an empirical basis as to what desires to encourage and discourage.
“The writer assumes that you should respect all oughts equally, or according to their intensity or so on, but this is just dogmatism.”
No it is dogmatism to uncritically prefer some desires over others, the default is to treat all equally however they vary in their outcomes and this is the basis upon which to determine which ones to encourage and discourage. Anything else is to be selective and apply exceptions or biases which is what you seem to be advocating. If you can provide another rational-empirical model to justify such exceptions and biases lets see it, otherwise your anti-dogmatic concern itself appears dogmatic.
“It clearly emerges from some deep-seated moral algorithm valuing equality, but it confuses and obtruses it.”
Equal consideration of desires is not based on valuing equality per se i.e. smuggling in a value by the back door, but rather appears to be the rational-empirical default unless you can can provide reason and evidence otherwise.
“It is better to become more self-aware and follow your moral senses more fully, not to obscure them with such oversimplifying rationalizations.”
This itself is a rationalisation used by many in ways that we might regard as immoral. Indeed the claim the one is morally superior is often used to justify immoral actions – genocide because god says so – and one has has better tuned moral sesne to detect the intentions of god – being a classic.
“We should look for science to reveal to us the way our brain works, including the way our moral intuitions work.”
This can only describe how they work not whether the heuristics are biased or not. We need an independent ground’s to determine that, otherwise you are just advocating a version of the naturalistic fallacy, because it is this way it should be this way.
“With such an understanding, we could come to shape and better follow our own heart’s desires.”
This is what Desire Utilitarianism (although I do not like the label) does. It is based on insights from psychology and neuroscience and studies of practial reasoning and action.
“Seeking to impose artificial philosophical dogmas only serves to alienate us from our true moral nature.”
“True moral nature” looks like an artificial philosophical dogma if ever I saw one. What does this mean? What is the empirical evidence that we have such a thing?
faithlessgod,
“There is not such thing as a “One Moral Truth” nor, AFAIK, does lukeprog make any such claim. The same critcims that you apply to lukeprog can be applied back to you, since our moral senses can be unreliable if not inveterately so, still the implication is for everyone to follow their own moral intuition and ignore any evidence and argument that disagree wiht this intuition (or prejudice). ”
Of course that’s not what I meant, nor am I saying Luke says this. Rather, I argue the basic principle he adheres to is dogmatic. He’s willing to hear arguments and evidence, sure, but his most basic principle – the equality of all desires times their intensity – is dogmatic, and is his One Moral Truth. I, on the other hand, have an un-dogmatic moral first principle – what motivates YOU is Your Moral Truth. There is no One here, only You.
Neither of us is saying moral issues are clear and cut and our thinking completely reliable.
Now, compare
“Contrary to stereotypical objective morality, he is saying there are no basic objective moral facts above and beyond the natural and real facts. There are no moral facts that are no reducible to other facts.”
To
“…it is dogmatism to uncritically prefer some desires over others, the default is to treat all equally however they vary in their outcomes and this is the basis upon which to determine which ones to encourage and discourage.”
You are making a non-sequitor here. The “default” is a disguised “ought”, it is NOT reducible to other (non-moral) facts. The actual fact of the matter is that we prefer our own “oughts”, a fact you agree with. There is no a priori equality. The only degree to which other desires matter is the degree to which they EMPIRICALLY do matter to us, to each of us individually. Insisting that they should matter equally is, at the risk of repeating myself, unfounded dogmatism, not based in any real-world fact.
“Anything else is to be selective and apply exceptions or biases which is what you seem to be advocating. If you can provide another rational-empirical model to justify such exceptions and biases lets see it, otherwise your anti-dogmatic concern itself appears dogmatic.”
My rational-empirical model is very simple – this is how humans actually think about morality, which is all that “morality” means. I am NOT saying people do not consider others’ desires – I’m saying that this is an EMPIRICAL question, a matter for science and not philosophy to determine, not a matter of meta-ethics. And our best current knowledge of how the brain operates indicates that our morality is comprised of an amalgam of different, sometimes conflicting “moral” senses (a sense of fairness, a sense of sympathy, and so on). The desires of others are, as best as we can currently tell, not the sole determinant and sometimes don’t enter the moral calculus at all (it isn’t fair for someone to receive all of the pie instead of his just share regardless of how strongly he wants the pie). We should not diminish our broad moral thinking to narrow utilitarian consideration of desire.
“Equal consideration of desires is not based on valuing equality per se i.e. smuggling in a value by the back door, but rather appears to be the rational-empirical default unless you can can provide reason and evidence otherwise.”
There is no rational default for assigning value to things, only a rational assignment of values to maximize a certain purpose within certain conditions. And what I am advocating for is the empirical fact of the matter – not an empirical default, whatever that means, but rather the empirically established way humans think.
“This itself is a rationalisation used by many in ways that we might regard as immoral. Indeed the claim the one is morally superior is often used to justify immoral actions – genocide because god says so – and one has has better tuned moral sesne to detect the intentions of god – being a classic.”
Everything can be twisted out of its meaning. The intent was not to bask in your moral superiority, but rather to realize that your morality is within yourself. A ramification of this relativism is that, indeed, others will do things that are immoral in your eyes and moral in theirs – but this does not mean that these are moral, only that they are moral in their eyes. I confess that I believe that most of these atrocities are due to factual errors people make about how the world works (e.g. there is a god they can tune it to) or how they themselves work (e.g. their prime moral motivation is to maximize desires), so that had these people known better their actions would have been considered wrong in their eyes too.
“This can only describe how they work not whether the heuristics are biased or not. We need an independent ground’s to determine that, otherwise you are just advocating a version of the naturalistic fallacy, because it is this way it should be this way.”
David Hume, which brought up this “fallacy”, also brought up its solution, but this is never taught… The fallacy disappears when you enter the human into your description of nature. Then the “is” that you are describing is precisely what the “ought” is for him, and hence the paradox fades.
There is no basis for the heuristics, well not a moral one. There is an evolutionary basis for the way our minds work, but saying that this justifies them is precisely to make the naturalistic fallacy. The heuristics are the very things defining “good” and “evil”; they cannot be justified morally, as they are the bedrock on which morality is defined.
“This is what Desire Utilitarianism (although I do not like the label) does. It is based on insights from psychology and neuroscience and studies of practical reasoning and action.”
No. It is based on an intuition that others’ desires are as important as yours, and clinging to this understanding against all the force of your other moral intuitions. Psychology and neuroscience actually show that our moral thinking is conducted by a wide assortment of different moral intuitions, not just this one. Although I’ll gladly grant that this is sour fruit, not at all mature yet; our knowledge is still very sketchy, and perhaps further research will justify DU, who knows. If it would, it will do so empirically, not meta-ethically. As a meta-ethical position, DU is groundless.
“True moral nature” looks like an artificial philosophical dogma if ever I saw one. What does this mean? What is the empirical evidence that we have such a thing?”
“True moral nature” just means the manner by which we each make our own moral choices. It clearly does exist, as we clearly make choices we consider moral. The question is only what is the evidence we have a SHARED, human, moral nature. Just off the top of my head – that people from all cultures respond to the trolly problem similarly, that people share in empathy to ingroup and animosity to out-groups, and so on. There are clearly some human universals, but I’ll happily grant that the extent to which there is a “human moral nature” and the description of it and its varieties is very much an open problem.
Yair
Rather, I argue the basic principle he adheres to is dogmatic. He’s willing to hear arguments and evidence, sure, but his most basic principle – the equality of all desires times their intensity – is dogmatic, and is his One Moral Truth. I, on the other hand, have an un-dogmatic moral first principle – what motivates YOU is Your Moral Truth. There is no One here, only You.
Your critique of luke’s position as dogmatic looks no different to your own as dogmatic.
Lets drop the name calling? It is unproductive.
IF you want to attempt or aspire look at the problem objectively there appears to be no a priori justification to preferring one agent’s desire over another (and, contrary your critique, intensity is not assumed to be important), I have asked for you to ratio-empirically justify your position to prefer your desires over others – but everyone, according to you, would do that, so when looking at the problem external to any agent, such preferences cancel out.
You are making a non-sequitor here. The “default” is a disguised “ought”, it is NOT reducible to other (non-moral) facts. The actual fact of the matter is that we prefer our own “oughts”, a fact you agree with. There is no a priori equality. The only degree to which other desires matter is the degree to which they EMPIRICALLY do matter to us, to each of us individually. Insisting that they should matter equally is, at the risk of repeating myself, unfounded dogmatism, not based in any real-world fact.
You are choosing to look at the problem subjectively and not objectively. This approach seeks an objective analysis the “default” as I put it was never a moral fact disguised or otherwise, but just the most likely basis to examine the interaction of two or more agents. I ask again how else could one look at this objectively, the observation that everyone, in your view, looks at the situation partially and from their own perspective, gives no priori basis to prefer one agent over another. If you insist, I am using ratio-empirical “norms” but this is not different to any other ratio-empirical inquiry and not a moral question.
Your quote also adds confusion in over moral facts, The issue of moral facts, within this empirical analysis, is the claim there are no addtionalo moral facts above and beyond the natural facts. If you think there are please give an argument that that is the case.
My rational-empirical model is very simple – this is how humans actually think about morality, which is all that “morality” means.
Sorry just because people think about it in a certain way does not mean it is “all in the head”. People think about many topics – astrophysics, history, detective investigation, cooking – none of these are “all in the head”, why do you think this topic is any different. I do not assume a prirori any specialness to the domain of morality, the default would be assume it is on the same par as any other empirical question, you think otherwise what is your justification for thinking this is unlike any other question?
I am NOT saying people do not consider others’ desires – I’m saying that this is an EMPIRICAL question, a matter for science and not philosophy to determine, not a matter of meta-ethics.
This is luke and my argument, you instead are adding some prior distinction that are meta-ethical and philosophical and not empirical.
And our best current knowledge of how the brain operates indicates that our morality is comprised of an amalgam of different, sometimes conflicting “moral” senses (a sense of fairness, a sense of sympathy, and so on). The desires of others are, as best as we can currently tell, not the sole determinant and sometimes don’t enter the moral calculus at all (it isn’t fair for someone to receive all of the pie instead of his just share regardless of how strongly he wants the pie).
This is a given, there is no dispute that people do this. The question is how reliable is such a “moral sense” and luke (or at least me) is suggesting taking the same approach that cognitive psychology takes in general. there is no reason to presume our moral reasoning is any more accurate and bias free that any other cognitive or connative process, which can be determined by examining heuristics and discovering biases through comparing these states to states of the world. You on the other hand are asserting that, inexplicably, contrary to every otyher field, that this more or less standard approach does not apply here.
We should not diminish our broad moral thinking to narrow utilitarian consideration of desire.
This is a different point and what type of “should” are you using here. If you can suggest other features that are relevant in analysis moral decision making then please do but so far all you have done is assume an unorthodox specialness without justification. The analysis of desire is based on looking for what real world entities exist and a relevant in moral consideration, it is an empirical conclusion defeaible in the light of new evidence and argument, what do you have?
There is no rational default for assigning value to things, only a rational assignment of values to maximize a certain purpose within certain conditions.
And what else could be the most general version of this – for any purpose with no conditions – than to assume no desires has more value than any other? The empircal approach does not assign value prior to the investigation but you are arguing that one should. Values and their relations should be discovered and analysis within such an investigation not prior to one. Seeking the best provisional and defeasible analysis requires one to identify and eliminate errors (of reason) and minimise mistakes (of fact) you appear to be insisting upon adding in such errors and mistakes a and there are no rational-empirical grounds that I am ware of to justify lowering the standard in this domain compared to any other.
And what I am advocating for is the empirical fact of the matter – not an empirical default, whatever that means, but rather the empirically established way humans think.
You are abusing this since, if this were the case what justification can you provide to prefer one person over another which is what you keep on arguing for.
The intent was not to bask in your moral superiority, but rather to realize that your morality is within yourself.
This discussion is not about my morality nor yours but about finding the best empirical approach to investigating morality.
A ramification of this relativism is that, indeed, others will do things that are immoral in your eyes and moral in theirs – but this does not mean that these are moral, only that they are moral in their eyes.
You appear to be putting the cart before the horse. We are looking at an objective a analysis of the domain, if it is the case that morality is relative as you argue that is still an objective fact of the matter. However you wish to prvent such an analysis, possibley becuase the conclusion coud be other than your relavisim which you … dogmatically,, appear to adhere to.
I confess that I believe that most of these atrocities are due to factual errors people make about how the world works (e.g. there is a god they can tune it to) or how they themselves work (e.g. their prime moral motivation is to maximize desires), so that had these people known better their actions would have been considered wrong in their eyes too.
So you mean they had mistaken or fallacious beliefs? This is certainly amenable to empirical analysis and unless you are some sor tof post-modernist which is a self-refuting position and n in which case there is no point in continuing this disucssion.
David Hume, which brought up this “fallacy”, also brought up its solution, but this is never taught… The fallacy disappears when you enter the human into your description of nature. Then the “is” that you are describing is precisely what the “ought” is for him, and hence the paradox fades.
Must be some confusion since our approach does use exactly the solution that Hume himself used, hence the focus on desire not belief! This approach is based upon Humean psychology after all! You on the other hand still appear to be committing deriving ought from is fallaciously by insisting that since everyone has their own moral truth, that is all there is. This is not what Hume was arguing for.
There is no basis for the heuristics, well not a moral one.
This seems an absurd claim. Why should our brains suddenly work entirely differently here to anywhere else? We have no evolved to be perfectly rational maximisers but to use short cut heuristics that are good enough (satisfycing) and these can misfire and mislead . Why should anything be any different when reasoning morally? Again you introduce an unjustified specialnesss.
There is an evolutionary basis for the way our minds work, but saying that this justifies them is precisely to make the naturalistic fallacy.
This is my complaint over your position.
The heuristics are the very things defining “good” and “evil”; they cannot be justified morally, as they are the bedrock on which morality is defined.
What justified this peculiar claim? What matters is the material, physical, therefore empirical affect of agent’ intentional actions upon each other, this is the core problem of morality. You seem to be confusing the capacity for forming different (mental) maps (heuristics) of this territory, with the territory itself.
No. It is based on an intuition that others’ desires are as important as yours, and clinging to this understanding against all the force of your other moral intuitions.
No we are quite critical of intuitionist thinking in general as well as moral intuitions in particular. You seem to be failing to understand what an objective analysis of any domain requires, which means not being subjective in examining the domain. That is not relying on your intuitions as more important than anyone elses – which is what you are advocating – but looking objectively at those intuitions or maps and rather seeing beyond them to the territory itself.
Psychology and neuroscience actually show that our moral thinking is conducted by a wide assortment of different moral intuitions, not just this one.
There is more to morality than psychology and neuroscience. These can at best describe how we think about moral topics and how such thking can be reviewed and modified but that is it. Since DU seeks and takes advantage of the best insights from this area there does not seem to tbe the issue that you are harping on about – still not sure what your issue is, except you seem to define away the possibility of an empirical, physical, material or objective analysis which is hardly an argument AFAICS.
As a meta-ethical position, DU is groundless.
It is exactly the groundless of your position that I am complaining about. You appear tyo be asserting there is no ground (territory) for morality only maps (heuristics and intuitions). what, meta-ethically, justifies you in ignoring the actual interactions of agents without which there is no problem of morality? Your position is groundless by your own definition as well as in terms of meta-ethics.
True moral nature” looks like an artificial philosophical dogma if ever I saw one. What does this mean? What is the empirical evidence that we have such a thing?”
“True moral nature” just means the manner by which we each make our own moral choices. It clearly does exist, as we clearly make choices we consider moral. The question is only what is the evidence we have a SHARED, human, moral nature. Just off the top of my head – that people from all cultures respond to the trolly problem similarly, that people share in empathy to ingroup and animosity to out-groups, and so on. There are clearly some human universals, but I’ll happily grant that the extent to which there is a “human moral nature” and the description of it and its varieties is very much an open problem.
But this is what Luke and I are advocating studying – how we make moral choices – which you are denying instead you say we should take them as is and not evaluate them in any way.
faithlessgod,
I seem unable to communicate to you, or convince you of, the basic subjective nature of morality.
Consider, instead, the topic of aesthetics. It is certainly possible to examine human aesthetics objectively, scientifically. Research shows, for example, that we prefer symmetry in faces, and so on. However, can you study aesthetics “external to any agent”? How would you do so? What will you measure? And suppose that you have two agents, that differ in how they evaluate aesthetics – Adam likes symmetric faces, Bob likes assymetric ones. In what sense is Bob “wrong”? He is outside the human norm, and wrong from that perspective, but that is all. If you were to construct a detailed scientific analysis of human aesthetics, and on this basis construct a theory of aesthetics that will allow people to make more beautiful works of art – that would be of great use to Adam, but not to Bob. Bob would want another theory of aesthetics, one tailored to his aesthetic sense.
You maintain that morality is not “all in the head”. Where else is it? Your moral (or aesthetic) judgment is a bit like your taste-judgment, so let’s look at cooking (one of your examples). Is some way of making food “objectively” better? NO. It is better to cook in certain ways, but only because of the nature of the human palette. You cannot have an a-priori or universal theory of cooking, you can only have theories of cooking that work well for most human beings and are broad enough to capture enough of the human spectrum to be broadly useful. You see, a theory of cooking is “all in the head” – it is about what people like to eat, and how to make that happen.
Morality works in the same way. Humanism offers a theory of morality that is useful for most humans because it is broad enough to capture human moral variety. But someone outside this spectrum is not “wrong” in an absolute sense, since there is no way to establish this sense. He just needs another theory of morality, since his moral sense is different.
As a first starting point, what matters is not “the material, physical, therefore empirical affect of agent’ intentional actions upon each other”; that is an empirical assertion that needs to be established empirically. Certainly, the actions exist. But so do gas nebulae; what MATTERS is a different question. Another EMPIRICAL question. The only way we can establish that is by looking into what matters to the agents, not by making bold assertions about what matters. On this, I hope, we can agree.
Secondly, what I (or anyone else) do is try to determine what my own desires are and act accordingly. I cannot do otherwise because my own desires are inherently my own reasons for my own action. The “most general version” is wholly irrelevant. Any agent follows his own desires, not “the most general version”.
Now, you maintain that what SHOULD matter for any agent is X (the weighted sum of all desires). But this is an assignment of value prior to empirical research. To quote you, “The empircal approach does not assign value prior to the investigation but you are arguing that one should. Values and their relations should be discovered and analysis within such an investigation not prior to one”. Where is the empirical research showing that X is what motivates people? How will you conduct an experiment to show that X is what should motivate people?
You are trying to build a “rational” theory of morality, but morality isn’t more rational than taste. Morality isn’t an abstract theory about what abstract agents would do, it is a body of wisdom to guide human actions. Since anyone follows their own desires, a theory about fulfilling abstract universal desire X (such as the weighted sum of all the universe’s desires) is pointless. A useful theory of morality is one that actual humans find useful, one that speaks to their own desires and teaches them how to fulfill them. Humans don’t follow desire X because it is more ‘rational’, they follow whatever their desires are just because these are their desires.
Why do you insist on looking at the problem external to any agent? The purpose of morals is to provide guidance to the actions of the AGENT, not to some abstract non-being external to it.
Why should I care that externally things cancel out? The only thing any agent cares about are his own desires, not some cosmic balance. Where is the evidence agents care about this balance, and how can there be any empirical evidence they should?
I do not need an empirical proof to state the analytic (rational) proof – I “prefer” my desires in that it is only my desires, by definition, that move me to action.
I don’t understand how intensity can be left out in your scheme. Luke definitely argues for it: “â€morally good’ means ’such as to fulfill more and greater desires than are thwarted…’ ”
You recommend the “default” as a reason for action, making it a moral fact. You are moving from describing the neutral fact that the “default” is the most general, objective, viewpoint [a point I contend, but no matter] to making the default into an “ought”, saying this is how we SHOULD examine interactions.
By looking at each individual as it is. There is no need for a universal framework, just like there is no preferred frame of reference in physics yet it is still objective.
Why should we a priori prefer one agent over another? Why not to do so a posteriori, in light of our own preferences? This is what we ultimately all do anyway, I’m just saying be aware of it.
No, such norms are used to inquire, not to decide how to act. Using them to decide how to act is a moral decision, and how to set the values for it is a moral question.
I don’t think there are. There is only an understanding what “morality” means.
The domain of morality is like the domain of cooking or aesthetics – a matter of personal judgment, not of a judgment on physical truth, that can be verified or negated against other parts of nature (such as a car’s velocity or so on).
Meta-ethics and philosophy are important, especially when formulating ethical theories…
However, there is a difference. You can examine our rationality against the world, to the extent that it is used to make deductions about physical states of affairs in it. You cannot examine our morality against the world, since you cannot independently determine the moral states of affairs. The moral sense cannot be judged for reliability, since there is no objective standard to measure it against.
That said, the situation is still very similar – you will be able to find biases and inconsistencies in our moral sense, certainly. Unlike rationality, you will not be able to find inaccuracies, but that is all.
My point is that this is an empirical question – what features are relevant/matter to human beings? At this point I can only conjecture, following Haidt, that these include fairness, truth, pleasure, suffering, loyalty, and respect.
That’s precisely what I have – an agent proceeds by analyzing his own desires, and any relevant facts about the world (including others’ desires, suffering, and so on), and then developing strategies to make his desires come true (most notably, by building moral character and pre-contemplating moral problems). All of his judgments are based on what exists in the real world, all are empirical conclusions amenable to revision in light of evidence.
What do you have? What kind of new empirical find will show that people should not behave according to principle X? I suggest that there is no such find, since this is not an empirical conclusion. Whether people should or should not follow X is a philosophical, not empirical, issue. The only empirical point here, and it is in my favor, is that people don’t seem to come with X as their ultimate goal in their brains, which makes it rather odd to say that they should put it there regardless.
On the contrary – I insist on correcting what I believe are errors in your reasoning, that is all.
I am not, yet, arguing for anything of the sort. All I’m arguing for is the meta-ethical position, not the ethical position. I insist that the only philosophically reasonable basis for preferring one person over another is if the agent preferring him actually prefers him. Duh. An agent should follow his own desires, not some others’ (except to the extent that following others’ happen to be his desire), simply because he cannot do otherwise – agents always act by their own reasons for action.
Philosophical, not empirical. You must have a good philosophy before you can move to empirical research, or you end up being confused and making false conclusions.
It is a fact of the matter – a philosophical fact of the matter. Agents are moved to action by their own desires, a universal morality is irrelevant to them. What I wish is to prevent a false analysis, starting from a false premise that X is to be followed by all agents regardless of their desires. It does not reflect anything of philosophical consequence.
In principle, sure. I’m certainly no post-modernist.
I do not see where I am inventing an ought – I describe that there is a separate ought for each person, and proceed to develop a moral theory describing how to maximize this ought – each ought individually. I do not invent a single overriding ought beyond the individual ones that we both agree exist.
You, on the other hand, appear to me to commit the is-ought fallacy when you derive a universal ought from the is of the abstract existence of the “defualt” point of view.
Again, our rationality makes physical predictions that can be contrasted with the real world*. Other heuristics, such as taste, artistic-taste, or morality, do not. These can still ‘misfire’, in some senses. Our sense of taste ‘misfires’ when we taste candy, in that it doesn’t serve the evolutionary drive that propelled liking sweet things and it’s bad for our health, but that doesn’t mean candy aren’t sweet. Our moral sense likewise has all sorts of knots, inconsistencies, and problems with it, I’m sure. But that won’t mean that, for example, kindness isn’t a good thing.
* Note that our basic logical intuitions cannot, BTW, be contrasted with experiment. Such contrasting already uses them. When we test our rationality, we are testing it not just against the real world, but also against our most basic rational intuitions. These define “true” and “false” in much the same way as our basic moral intuitions define “good” and “bad”.
Circularity. There is no final moral foundation for morality. There is no final rational foundation for rationality. There is no final existential foundation for existence. A domain cannot gain final support for itself from within itself. Nothing can cause existence to exist, since nothing can exist outside existence. No logical truth can logically necessitate logic, since such a truth and deduction already presupposes logic. No moral truth can morally justify morality, since such a truth already presupposes morality. Instead, existence exists, because it cannot be otherwise. Logic is true, because this is a way existence can be described. Moral truths are true, because this is how humans can be described. A domain is always established outside itself.
You seem to be laboring under the impression that looking objectively at something is not using your intuitions. I’m afraid we may have a problem with language here. As far as I am concerned, looking objectively at something is being very careful about what intuitions we apply, but all our thought is intuitive. The point of reason is not to rely on others’ intuitions (surely they all can be mistaken), but rather to carefully and methodologically apply your own.
You also did not discover any territory beyond. There are desires in people, yes. They define their oughts, yes. This is the territory. The new X you propose is not a territory, it is only your own (misguided) desire.
I define away the possibility of an empirical, physical, material, objective universal morality, on the basis that such a thing cannot exist and does not exist empirically. I am all in favor of an empirical, physical, material, objective analysis of what people actually want and how to facilitate these desires. I am opposed to any morality that purports to be empirical but actually seeks to advance the desires of the abstract entity X; I’m a humanist, I’m in favor of advancing human desires.
I am not ignoring it, I am just not positing a universal ethic on top of it. Moral desires exist. Moral theory is a way to advance these desires. This is the ground, the solid reality. Going beyond that to abstract X’s and universal moralities is leaving off to never-never land.
Hardly. I am arguing for a theory of morality that helps us expose our innermost desires, shed away misconceptions and self-delusions, and face ourselves as we really are. This requires heavy evaluation. I am arguing for a theory of morality that carefully considers the ramifications of our choices, in light of our conflicting moral senses and cognitive limitations, and utilizes our ability to change our moral nature and reforge our moral character. This is anything but taking our base intuitions as they are. I am arguing for enlightened rational intuitivism, not naive wanton barbarity.
Yair
I do not deny that there is a subjective component to morality indeed this approach is partly dependent upon this, I have yet to see you justify that this is all there is to morality and remain skeptical of your assertions (and arguments) that this is the case.
As for aesthetics that is IMHO a false analogy. No-one, seriously thinks that everyone should have the same tastes, whereas a key distinguishing feature of morality that separates it from aesthetics is that this is applicable to everyone, it is universal in some sense or other.
Quite correct. I find this a highly dubious a priori assumption that I still fail to see you reasonably justify. Obviously morality is partly in the head and many of the points you make in reference to what is in the head we agree upon, but this is not the point of our dispute.
The other examples were astrophysics, history, detective investigations and I note you chose the one that was closest to your aesthetics argument. However if your point is meant to work in cooking then it should work not just for cooking but for astrophysics, history, detective investigations and you cannot reasonably justify that these are all in the head! The point in dispute is whether morality is more like aesthetics or physics, history, detective investigations and so on. Until you can establish that it is not like the latter I will take the reasonably open-minded approach that it could be and see how far this takes me. I will not a priori rule out or deny the possibility of an empirical domain and you have not, so far, not presented a decent argument that it should be treated in the way you advocate.
First I am making not “absolute” arguments here, someone outside the spectrum can still be “wrong” in the typical empirical (i.e. provisional, defeasible) sense. If humanism advocates an aversion to murder and someone outside it thinks it is morally acceptable to kill those one does not like how is this just “another theory of morality”? Most, unlike you, would condemn such a “morality” as, indeed being wrong. Why? Because it is not up to any individual – or society – to arbitrarily decide what is right or wrong. The whole point of morality is that it is universally applicable. People might disagree on its foundations – quite radically – but without some sense of universality you are simply not talking about morality (even as some still use moral language to supposedly justify their actions).
And what matters to agents is not what is in their head but the actions and consequences of those and others actions, some actions are right and to be encouraged, other are wrong and to be discouraged, some outcomes are good and be promoted and other outcomes are bad and be inhibited. If it were the case that no-one had any issue with each others actions and outcomes, then there would be no need for morality, it is because there are such issues and mutual effects on each other, that there is such a need for morality. The actions and outcomes is the primary topic of morality upon which moral codes and theories are formed to resolve.
As the old saying goes there is no smoke without fire. You seem to be focused on the smoke and to deny there is (the possibility of) a fire.
I make not argument contrary to this so this point is irrelevant.
No I do not.
Since I make no argument that X is what motivates people there is nothing for me to show here.
Again I make not argument that X is what should motivate people so no need to conduct any experiments for this either.
No I am seeking to provide a rational-empirical particularistic model of human motivation which is necessarily a model of prescriptions. I am offering a specific version of this but such approaches are pretty much where all the debate is on ethics today under the labels of moral realism and ethical reductive (and non-reductive) naturalism.
I am not building an abstract model but a practical bottom up model. Secondly morality is not just “a body of wisdom”.
Again not what I am arguing for.
This is exactly what I am arguing for.
How else is one expected approach this problem objectively? Surely just like anywhere else? Why do you think on prior grounds one should not do the same here?
Without a preview or edit function this blog is becoming an impractical place to pursue this debate. Anyway here is the second half of my above response unmangled. Lets hope this works.
Such an approach is to seek to understand the plausible real world grounds for such action-guidance. Why are you failing to understand rather simple and basic empirical point?
I have never said you or anyone else should. The fact that everyone has their own preferences is just part of the data needing to be studied.
No, what people care about are the content or target of their desires, whatever they are. Have a desire means caring about having its conditions of fulfilment met.
Look maybe an expansion here might help.
P1. Agent A desires that P
P2. A believes that action X will bring about a state of affairs where P is true
C1. A has a reason to X, this reason being the desire that P
P3 Action Y will bring about a state of affairs where P is false.
C2. A has a reason not to Y, (this reason being the desire that P).
P4. Agent B desires that Q
P5. B believes that Y will being about a state of affairs where Q is true.
C3. B has a reason to Y
C4. A has a reason to prevent B from Y’ing, (the reason being A’s desire that P).
and so on.
Part of the domain of morality is about the methods that A and B uses to discourage each other from preventing the fulfilment of their desires. Do they seek to change those desires, prevent the actions, using social forces or power, force to achieve this and so on?
One possibility is for A to get B to change their desire to a desire that P – and that would be through motivational non-cognitivism upon which, I think, we both agree – you cant use reason (beliefs) to change desires.
Everyone does this all the time, whether get some to go on a date, chose a movie to see or a restaurant to go to and so on from the trivial to the life altering.
A model of morality needs to study how these motivations work, how they interact and what are the implication of differing actions, unequal power, varying outcomes and so on. This is the territory within which morality exists. The challenge is to provide the best plausible map of this territory. You keep on wanting to deny there is such a territory which AFAICS is absurd and you have provided no good argument for.
Luke just give the simplest heads up on the clash of desires. If there were no clash of desires, that is no incompatible state of affairs then there would be no problem of morality (of course there are numerous other reasons why a desired state of affairs may fail to occur – it may be impossible – unfulfillable – or practically impossible due to limitations of the agent or possible but the agent fails due to lack of resources and so on, here we are concerned with mutual fulfilment and thwarting as the result of intentional action hence interactions of agents – which is the domain of morality).
What I meant was just because someone holds a desire more intensely than someone else’s conflicting desire is not a sound basis to rule for the more intensely held desire over the other. We want a more impartial basis to evaluate or analyse such a conflict.
No I do not. I am not talking about reasons for action at this point, merely establishing the terrain to examine reasons for action.
I am not making the default an “ought”, moral oughts are the result of an evaluation and until an evaluation is done we do not know what they are. This, if this is what I am doing, is not a moral should but an epistemic “should” nothing more. If you think we SHOULD examine interactions on a different basis please provide your basis and your epistemic justification for it.
As a particularist I do not think there is any such thing as a universal framework. Looking at anyone as they are is purely descriptive and so not a moral theory at all. You need to look at the range of possible interactions for a given situations in order to evaluate those interactions otherwise you not doing anything.
Then you are simply failing to provide a moral theory or model or framework but instead one biased by your own preferences, this is entirely subjective and why should anyone care else about your preferences, or mine ? Your argument is not a moral model or theory at all.
There are no such things as moral states of affairs there are just states of affairs. It is a matter of fact that, given a desire, as to whether it is fulfilled or thwarted in a given state of affairs. You seem to think that if morality is not in the head then it is out there it is neither, it is a sub-species of the only type of values that exist which is a relation between what is in the head (brain states) and is outside the head (world states). When it comes to morality it is not just your head but everyone’s head – unless you can justify otherwise. You claim to be a humanist so I fail to see why you would deny this.
And what are moral character and moral problems? You have so far failed to cast any light on this. I disagree many moral judgements are based on what exists on the world and this can be a problem, the classic being god of course. Many such judgements are based on fictions and fantasies which makes their moral reasoning unsound. Further one still has to address the clash of such moral judgement – whether based on fact or fiction – and without addressing that you have no actually addressed to the core problem of morality as I keep on pointing out.
Since I making no such argument all this is irrelevant.
Still waiting to see what they are, however correcting your misunderstandings can only help you in doing this. I am all for finding errors in my thinking and I hope you are, in yours, too.
Now you’re saying I am misunderstanding you entirely. You say you don’t advocate X, but DU is all about advocating actions that maximize desire utility (hence the name) – namely, X. Until we clarify this misunderstanding, this discussion is going nowhere. Are you advocating that any agent should strive to maximize the joint utility of all desires (DU), or not? If not, what is it precisely that you ARE advocating, and why call it DU?
How can you say you are not advocating X and at the same time say things like
?!! It sure looks to me like you are arguing for One Moral Theory (“or model, or framework”) – i.e., an X.
And of course no one should care about my preferences, except for the little fact that since both of us are human we largely share our preferences, so my preferences are also yours – hence “Humanism”.
Some issues are independent of this point, however -
You keep trying to drag me to ethical issues when I’m talking meta-ethics. I do not deny that people care about interactions with other moral agents, that possible states of the world are important to them (to base their decisions on), that there is a clash of desires that is critical to understand, or so on. Nor am I claiming that my meta-ethical point solves all moral issues – just that it sets the stage. I’m simply way before such considerations – back at the very basics, meta-ethics. We cannot consider the details (like what separates “moral character and moral problems” from aesthetic or culinary ones, for example) before we agree on the first principles.
I persist in my opinion that morality is more like taste than astrophysics. Astrophysics is about what the physical structure of the universe is, a reality that is not inherently related to humans at all. Morality is about what is the moral value of a given physical state, values that can only be determined by considering what a human thinks about the physical state – just like sweet taste can only be determined by considering human’s taste buds. These categorizations are inherently subjective because they are internal categorizations of the agent (to be used in his decision-making), rather than ones representing factual properties of the objects/states that are true regardless of the agent and his categorization schema.
How would an empirical morality even look like? Suppose you invent a Morality Meter, that measures action X as “90% Good”. Why should anyone follow it? You might as well call it a Boojam Meter. If you invent a meter that measures action X as “90% Desirable FOR YOU, MY USER” – now you’re talking. But that’s what I’m describing – an individual, not universal, moral theory. Relativism, with a shared Humanism leading to shared judgments a posterioi (due to our shared human moral sense), not a priori (by the rational principles of DU or whatever). I fail to see how a universal morality would be relevant to humans. [That everyone thinks there is something universal about morality merely points to their self-delusion and confusion.]
Sure. It isn’t a matter of fact whether you should give a rat’s ass about this fact. My meta-ethical argument is that whether you should depends on your desires, not only on the aforementioned fact. It has become unclear to me whether you disagree with that or not…
Absolutely. Just like taste, and artistic taste, and NOT like the rotational velocity of a star, or whether Ceasar had a beard… Sorry if that’s confusing, but I’m calling these kinds of relations “all in the head”.
Yair
No you are not talking about desire utilitarianism DU but about desire fulfilment act utilitarianism DFAU. DU is different in the following ways:
1. The evaluation focus is on desire not acts (or rules).
2. There is no utility to maximise – desire fulfilment is not an intrinsic value theory indeed assumes they do not exists and so not the type of thing to be maximised.
3. The desire fulfilment theory of value argues that real value is not intrinsic – neither desires nor the state of affairs that are their targets have intrinsic value – but extrinsic – relational – relations between a desire and the state of affairs that are their targets. Fulfilment is the label to give where the state of affairs that is the target of a desire is realised, thwartment is the label given where the state of affairs that is the target of desire is prevented.
4. The desire fulfilment theory of value argues that such extrinsic, relational value is most likely plural and incommensurate so making the challenge of maximising such values virtually impossible.
5. It is utilitarian in the sense that all desire are initially treated equally (as opposed to egoism or egalitarianism)
DU combines elements of aretics, deontology and consequentialism.
So no DU is not about maximising a desire utility X.
However our dispute has primarily not been about DU or your misinterpretation DFAU but about what morality IS. I am arguing that one cannot look at desires subjectively alone at least that is not a sufficiently objective approach especially when better are available such as objectively in terms of their interactions and DU is a provisional model to describe interactions and how and why different actions are recommended and this, in turn, is based on a certain form of conflict resolution and avoidance strategy that has the benefits of parsimony, simplicity, lack of bias, extendibility, testability and so on over any other such approach I have seen but I am always looking for better.
Whether I settle upon DU or replace it with something else what would still be the case that the domain that morality that both addresses and is caused by and is partly constituted by what I call the territory – the domain of voluntary social interactions. My main complain is that you have defined away this domain which keeps on indicating that you are talking about morality in name only, in some sense de dicto whereas I am talking about morality de re
Whilst I personally don’t like the name I prefer “desirism” that name makes sense within ethical theory as explained above (compare/search virtue consequentialism, world consequentialism and so on).
That point is nothing to do with advocating X but is discussing what the domain of morality is.
Right this blog comment technology is getting very annoying and time wasting. It will post an unmagled version (I hope) of the remainder of my post here and if you reply will work out a way to move it to my blog (which has a preview facility) or yours if you have one (both a blog and a preview or edit facility in comments).
I have asked for reason and evidence that this is the case and all you can offer is an opinion?
Agree with everything up to the last clause. The difference is I am looking at value objectively not subjectively. It is a matter of fact as to whether a desire is fulfilled or thwarted. This is well understood in desire-based theories in ethics – see Griffin, Lewis, Railton, Mackie, Brandt, Fyfe or the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy – which is why these are used as the ground for a reductive naturalistic and objective model of ethics. Whether any work sufficiently well is a separate question as to what the domain of morality is.
What makes these “inherently subjective”? Nothing here denies the possibility of empirical analysis. Further it is exactly because desires influence decision making and actions and materially and physically affect states of affairs that one can objectively determine if they have been fulfilled or not and that is all that is needed to provide a possible grounds for an objective examination of their interactions. (The different philosophers noted above – as well as others who deny an objective basis such as Hare – all propose different solutions to this. Fyfe proposes the most basic and obvious one (actually the non-cogntivist Hare did too), surprising that others prefer more complex, less obvious and more problematic ones).
We are talking about an empirical analysis of morality not an emprical morality. The same outcome can be derived from a non-empirical basis such as non-cognitivism e..g Hare.
I do not think such a meter is implied by DU and am criical of things like a felicific calculus, the question is why should anyone follow any recommendation? Through the use of social forces – praise, condemnation, reward and punishment and legal forces hopefully coherent and consistent with these social forces both reinforcing them and applying the consequences when people fail to respond to the social forces.
Then again such social forces etc. are part and parcel of morality whatever theory one espouses.
You are using “universal” in a peculiar and unorthodox way. All moral theories have in some sense or other a universal component such as everyone in the same situation – regardless of who they are – would be under the same prohibitions, permissions and obligations. If you do not think that, instead that different people are under different prohibitions, permissions and obligations then you are not talking about the topic of morality. Certainly some try to abuse the concept to benefit themselves by such dodges and possibly invoke a de dicto usage of morality but whether they do or not, such differences can be considered critically under any moral theory in terms of its failure to universalise.
Sorry but relativism and humanism is substantively different ethical ideas and DU (which is a posteriori as opposed to your approach), as it happens, provides an provisional basis for humanism but I fail to see how relativism can.
Ok now you are denying any form of universality but claiming it is self-delusion or confusion make no sense. What is deluded about thinking that anyone in the same situation is under the same obligations etc. that is a stance shared by pretty much anyone with a moral viewpoint? Now they may be deluded or in error as to its basis or justification (such as invoking fictional or fantasy reasons that do not actually exist) or confused in its application (apply double standards and so on) but that is a different issue,
That is an entirely different issue. First gather the facts and then seewhat the lay of the land is .
No it also depends of the desires of others. If you don’t care they can give you a reason to care. As to how and what to care about well that is a key question that any moral theory must address.
The relations I am talking about are not in the head as should have been quite clear! Calling them that does not make them so nor is that an argument. The fact that we both agree internal desires are required to motivate anyone does not preclude an objective analysis of such motivations. You still have failed to give any argument why this is not possible. Your naming it subjective is just playing semantics. Desires generate facts that we can objectively analyse. Just because desires are required does not mean it is subjective such as to deny any useful empirical consideration of the problem. Your position is simply contrary to a mainstream of current thinking in ethics and I have seen no actual argument against this. Of course, other philosophers do criticise such approaches but they do not deny the grounds of morality as you have been doing.
If you continue to dogmatically insist on denying the grounds of morality and insisting upon your relativism then no productive or constructive debate is possible.
The whole concept of morality is a fallacy, is a duality.
John C
Just about to sign off but you just posted:
“The whole concept of morality is a fallacy, is a duality.”
What fallacy is it exactly? If you mean it is invoking dualism, I certainly agree that any morality that does this is irrevocably flawed – such as God-based morality. However the basis from which both Luke and I approach – and not just just the solution we both endorse – denies dualism so we are not invoking your presumed fallacy.
For some reason I cannot reply to the latest posts. Oh well, we should definitely move to a different forum – assuming you want to continue this conversation. I don’t have a blog in English – unless you want to move the discussion to Hebrew, I suggest using your own or some other forum…
And you can add me to the camp that denies duality, too.
Anyway, it seems you have pared down our disagreements to two points: DU, and what is morality (which is the bigger issue).
First the bigger fish – morality. I’m perplexed, but will try one more angle of attack. It has been said the all of philosophy is a footnote on Plato, but I rather think it is a footnote on Aristotle. So let us start with the very beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics,
Would you agree with Aristotle and me that it is identifying and furthering these final desires, the ultimate ends of people, that is the core subject of morality? I hope that we can agree on this much, at least.
We also seem to agree that, as an empirical matter, we find desires, including ultimate desires, in the minds of humans. [Let us leave other creatures alone, at least for now.] I note that exploring the mental structures of humans, including elucidating the structure of human desires and any ultimate desires they have, is a wholly empirical scientific task, falling under psychology and neuroscience.
Now, you object to relativism. But does it not follow from the last point that it is a priori possible that different humans will pursue different final ends? And does not modern psychiatry indicate that sociopaths, for example, follow different final ends than normal humans do, in that their ends do not include consideration for others’ suffering? Does it not follow from modern neuroscience and biology that different people will have different brain structures and varied mental faculties, e.g. some people will be fairness-blind much like some people are color-blind? It therefore follows that to study the final ends of humans requires recognizing the variety within the human species, and therefore that relativism holds true.
At the same time, virtually every human will share the basic moral structures much like virtually every human shares the mental and cognitive structures related to vision. To quote Wikipedia, “Humanists endorse universal morality based on the commonality of the human condition” – hence, this is humanism.
You seem to be arguing for another meaning of morality. You say,
I have not defined this territory away, but nor am I restricting myself to it. The territory spanned by morality is whatever is spanned by human desire, and voluntary social interactions form only part (albeit the lion’s share) of this domain.
At any rate, I fail to see why it is the territory that defines morality and not the other way around. As defined by Aristotle, morality is about the final desires of humans. These, in turn, heavily involve social interactions. It’s the reverse causal relation.
Now, on to DU. Luke defines DU in his 48-page booklet with examples such as
I concede that this is not standard utlilitarianism, or rule utilitarianism, and I may have misrepresented it. It also seems entirely arbitrary to me, but let us leave the specifics of DU alone until we can sort out the meta-ethics. The point I do want to make here is that it still involves an X. Luke is pertaining to determine whether something should be desirable to the agent, i.e. moral, by testing whether it increases said utility X. It is some abstract property X (a sum over all desire fulfillment, given desire Y or its lack) that is maximized. Can’t you see there is a gap here? Agents are moved by their own reasons for action, not by any abstract X. It is an agent that makes a decision to act; why should he care if X is increased, if his own desires are thwarted?
To reiterate this point – you say
Ignoring DU itself for the moment, can’t you see that the parsimony, simplicity, lack of bias, extendibility and so on of an algorithm that labels actions as recommended are besides the point? Morality is about studying human ends, human evaluations, not this invented algorithm for evaluation. It doesn’t matter if human evaluations are biased, or overly complicated, or so on – for a given human, it is only his own evaluations that matter [the facts the enter the evaluation matter too, of course, but we're talking about the evaluation algorithm itself here, not its input].
Interactions are to be described empirically, through science. The only evaluation algorithm that matters to an individual is his own. The only morality that he would be prone to enact is one that he sees furthers his own evaluations. It is therefore, by necessity, tailored to his moral sense. A theory on how to advance the abstract evaluation algorithm X is simply irrelevant, regardless of the “advantages” of this algorithm.
Yair
Here is the first post Is Morality all in the Head? (http://impartialism.blogspot.com/2009/06/is-morality-all-in-head.html)
There is also a preliminary post explaining that one, there is a link at the beginning of the above linked post.
I will leave the second one (on DU) for a while.
Hi Yair
Yes another issue with this comment system is scrolling up past old posts including my uneditable mangled (and therefore extra-long) ones but be able to make a reply.
Anyway thanks to the wonders of my google android phone I am able to respond very shortly after your last post (not sure such email immediacy is a good thing in general and beginning to understand the crackberry moniker for blackberry users).
Anyway I have not yet read your latest post properly but I think the debate can be split in 2 and I will create two posts on my blog sometime later today not now. One will focus on whether morality is wholly in the head, what is morality and me critiquing your argument for moral relativism. The other will focus on DU and your critique of that.
I will try and quote you only from you latest and most recent post (or posts) with minimal or no selective quoting to properly represent your views. Can I quote your handle in these posts too or what name do you wish to go by?
If you want to say anything to the contrary of my suggestions above please post a reply or at least a simple confirmation as it might be useful to know that you have read this comment and agree. Otherwise I will prepare these posts and put their links a follow up to this comment. Today or tomorrow not sure when.
BTW one of my names is Shlomo although most people know me as Martin.
Hi Martin, my middle name is Moshe but don’t tell anyone.
I do not go by pseudonyms. Well, mostly. You can quote me as Yair, or by my full name Yair Rezek.
Moving to another venue would certainly be a good thing. You can quote whatever you want off me, but especially in regards to DU posts prior to the last might be less useful, in that I indeed mangled it a bit.
Just post a link to the posts when you make them.
I’ll leave the debate in your capable hands, my friends.
Meantime, I’m going to act on my desire to grill a hot dog!
Grilled salmom steaks and eggplant slices with potato salad here.
Yours > Mine.
Yummmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!
In fact, I had dinner with a beautiful girl…St. Pauli Girl, that is.
My own personal thoughts on morality without a divine creator are this: Humans have evolved to a point where we are capable of understanding that the next guy has a similar life experience as we do. We understand the ‘golden rule’. We as humans have the capability to put ourselves in someone else’s place, and decide if from that perspective, we would want to be in that spot or treated that way, or whatever.
If you can envision the other guy’s perspective, you have all the tools you need to define morality. Is it wrong to kill someone? Answer the question, “Would you like to be killed?” Is it wrong to steal? Well, would you like to be stolen from?
The great thing about this is that it does not require any kind of god. All it requires is a sufficiently advanced brain. I don’t think this level of advancement is limited to humans – there are other species that are capable of this level of thinking.
which ones?
Elephants mourn the death of their own and Dolphins call each other by name ( Old spotty fin etc.). I don’t know if this totally qualifies but a case could be argued that killing a Dolphin is murder since they have a developed enough conciousness to know individuals by name.
Woah. Unfortunately, this is way to many comments for me to personally respond to! Where are my philosopher-minions when I need them?
Morality is a fallacy. It implies an either/or, good or evil which denotes a pluraility of nature as opposed to a singular, a one. This lowered, earthly (natural, physical) realm is subject to the illusion of dualities yet the higher spiritual (heavenly, true, pristine, undefiled, pristine) realm of the spirit is singular and true. Morality represents the residual fragments, the leftovers from the tree of the knowledge (as opposed to the innocence, tree of life, Chrsit) which is the source of all of mankinds divisions, strife’s, war’s, even religion, etc.
Christ restores us to the One state, the original matrix, the innocence where the many striations are all remedied, resolved and light can once again permeate the entire tri-partate being which is humanity.
JC, everytime I read you I think you are more close to an oriental religion than to christianism. Are you sure you picked the right religion? (rethoric question, I know you are)
Luke, I hope you can see that as a disgression about morality. If philosophers couldn’t agree after so many years, you couldn’t expect to convince us all. That doesn’t mean yours can be a path to further study, or of course you can change your mind, unlike JC :-)
At least JC is more honest than many christians. He is the first believer who publicly admit that biblical morality is a fallacy, good start.
If anyone sees JC walking around naked, please know that he is not suffering from mental illness. He is the proof that his “JC(Jesus Christ)” has restored him to the original matrix.
Just respond to the ones that you can. Ignore comments that are not well thought out. At least read any responses to comments that you made. Your article got a lot of response for a guest article. Congratulations, that reflects the quality of your writing skills and the content appeals to us (whether we agree or not.)
I have enjoyed the discussion in the comments. keep it up.
Luke
OK I will be your minion here but just this once! ;-)
Hold on a sec… were does god say that rape and murder are bad?
In the bible, being the word of god as I am told, he clearly states that rape and murder are legal actions….