10k Philosophy challenge

[Daniel McKay]

On 8/2/2024 at 11:26 AM, MSC said:

Hi Daniel, I'm working my way through and came across this; 

 

Now I can understand completely where you are coming from with both subjectivism and most forms of relativism. However, my approach would be arguing for moral realism through objectively derived context relativism. Which is termed as new relativism in the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. 

 

Rounding back to context relativism, it isn't a theory of what ought to be, it's a theory of what is already the case and is more of a statement on the observable truth of our moral psychology. The ought in context relativism, is that we ought to explicitly figure out the nature of our context dependent value attributions so we can understand how we already view morality and truth, understand contention, confusion and disagreement. 

Like I said however, I do understand where you are coming from and if I decide to take a crack at your challenge once I've finished the primer, I will. But definitely need to address the rejection of all relativism and I will make a case in a submission for why context relativism should not be a cause for exclusion, based on it's merits as a form of objective moral realism, that adheres not only to moral sentiment but discoveries made about the physical nature of the universe. It also deconstructs why other forms of relativism, like cultural relativism are incorrect, by identifying non-uniformity of moral thought within nearly every given culture. 

I'll leave it there and maybe you can let me know if there can be an exception for this relativism, as ultimately what really separates moral realism and moral subjectivism when it comes to relativism, is what we are saying things are relative to. 

I'll probably add more questions as I continue reading btw. Hope you are well and thanks, this has been pretty engaging so far.

Hey, sorry I haven't been on here in a while. Just catching up now. It does sound as if there are some different underlying assumptions about the nature of morality going on here. One way I like to think about it is in terms of what the job of ethicists are. It sounds like the kind of context relativism you are proposing assumes that ethicists are kind of like proof-readers, trying to make consistent those things that we already think. Is that a fair assessment do you think? I am assuming that ethicists are more like scientists, trying to find a truth about the universe that would be there whether or not we were around to know about it.

On 8/2/2024 at 1:00 PM, MSC said:

Firstly; scenario two is a lot of language just to say "You do nothing." But there is a problem with freedom consequentialism as laid out in the primer. You've tried to define, good, bad and neutral in terms of "better" and "worse" which are both still value attributions but as yet undefined by freedom consequentialism/You. In short, you've not bridged the is/ought gap because you've not described what good or bad is to start with and your definition was circular. What is better? More good? What is good? Better than bad? Is bad better than worse? 

Earlier you mentioned moral intuition and later coercion. You didn't relate the two but moral intuition, or intuition more broadly is most likely a psychological phenomena relating to partially recalled memory. It's like a mental calling card for "This is so because it fits with a past experience of mine." And since we can never engage in moral learning from a clean slate, from birth to now, what we were taught about it, informs our intuitions. Stealing feels intuitively wrong to me and you, because that is what we were taught all along. Facts about quantum mechanics feel weird and counterintuitive because we've all spent our lives using our eyeballs observing how matter moves around at our level, all our lives. Literally spooky action at a distance is Einstein having a wtf reaction to quantum entanglement and how an apparent information exchange between two entangled particles can seem to happen faster than the speed of light. Why? Because he'd always observed nothing can break the speed of light. 

Rounding back to why I related this to coercion; our moral intuitions are essentially coercions by our past experiences and the fallibility of human recall. When I feel intuition, I ask myself what I'm forgetting, then from there I figure out whether or not the original root memory was correct and if it was useful intuition or just bias coming out. 

 

Are you making simplicity a criteria for simplicity's sake or are you implying that the truth is not complex? 

Okay, having now read everything, I'm going to be honest, I won't be entering this competition. It's not because I believe freedom isn't something to value, it is, and context relativism definitely gives limelight to consequentialism but it doesn't drop everything. Context relativism is actually a response really to the rut philosophers find themselves in based on "Moral intuition." This, "there can be only one" mentality. A monopoly on moral thought where everything can only be viewed through one lens or that one moral framework that is supposed to guide and get everyone through everything, morally and physically unscathed and that itself is just not based on reality. There is such a thing as moral ecology and context relativism isn't a normative theory about right and wrong, it's the set of all theories of right and wrong together, in a linguistic toolbelt, designed to help people figure out the rights and wrongs of their own moral thoughts in relation to other living beings doing the same, how to grow, change and adapt and recognize that in some situations, putting any one value, in this case freedom, isn't always going to lead you to good consequences in every situation and may lead to a failure or a tragedy of sorts. I'm a parent so honestly I've had about 1001 thought scenarios of all the things that could go wrong for my kids as they grow up and plenty of those scenarios are possible and for some of them the right choice is me lying about committing a crime and taking a fall for my kids, in the scenarios where they are about to be a victim of a broken justice system. 

So about 5 years ago, I came to the realization that moral philosophers and ethicists, when you ignore all the arguing and the tribalism and just, listen, without assuming, you realize that these old squabbling dead and living philosophers are discovering more and more about all the different ways humans think about right and wrong and I've yet to meet a single person who can really be called just a utilitarian, consequentialist, deontologist or even a pragmatist. A lot of philosophers are arguing about the right one or most true one and the answer is that it will always be context dependent. Our planet, our world, it's a context. On this planet, if I dropped you from a cliff you might die, if I drop you from a cliff on a different celestial body, with far weaker gravity, you might just get to experience what it would be like to be a feather. 

And yes, I realize the irony in that I still came up with a paradigm where I can say everyone is really a contextualist, so there is almost a "There can be only one" type vibe, the difference is that you are arguing for which is the best colour on the human moral tapestry, while I'm calling the tapestry a tapestry and really just avoiding the debate altogether because what we are looking at just wouldn't be the same without the majority of all the colours present (except for the parasitic one, a topic for another day. Freedom consequentialism is true... Until it's not. It is true that some people will think about right and wrong in these terms, weighing up freedom is a real phenomenon but... It's just not a complete normative theory because it doesn't, like many others, explain why all these disagreements exist in the first place, nor does it acknowledge the existence of moral situations and problems where different outcomes wouldn't relate to freedom threats. Contextualism does. Contextualism also acknowledges the inherent complexity of existence and while having epistemic tools to try and make things easier, it never ever makes them simple. There are only two simple facts; Nothing is ever simple and there are two simple facts.... That's it. 

Phew, sorry if I sounded overly polemical toward the end there, was just getting into the flow of these kinds of debates again. Keep it coming! 

Oh, last thing, when we care about truth, it's best to offer a prize for changing your mind too, else we aren't acknowledging the truth that we can always be mistaken because we are all fallible. My prize can just be more conversation though, keep your money. Seriously why are you offering a prize of 10k for this? 

Yeah, so it is a bit like saying "you do nothing" but "doing nothing" isn't really an option in consequentialism. Just staying where you are is choosing the possible world in which that occurs. The point of that is to compare your actions to had you not been "in play" as a moral agent.

"Better" in this context refers to less freedom being violated/restricted, as that is the measure of value being used. "Worse" refers to less. I did discuss the measure of value before I moved on to what obligations we have.

Intuition does usually work that way, but "moral intuitions" is the term used for pre-theoretical moral "gut feelings" as it were, and these are more likely a result of both upbringing and evolution. In either case, it isn't coercive. Having an intuition isn't like me pointing a gun in your face, it doesn't take your choice from you.

Yeah, I think the difference here is one of starting assumptions. I don't think a normative theory needs to explain why people believe what they do, because what they believe isn't relevant. Everyone in the world could hold one moral view, and it wouldn't bring that view any closer to being true. The truth simply is, regardless of whether we are aware of it. I am not suggesting that answer is simple, but it is objective, and that is the answer I am looking for. Not just one that explains the human moral tapestry, but one that explains morality entire, for all moral agents across all possible worlds.

As for why I am offering 10k for it: because I didn't have more to offer.

 

 

[dimreepr]

On 8/4/2024 at 1:00 PM, MSC said:

The tribalistic component revolves around school of thought and institutional narrative/politics. Simply put, if I am an advocate for theory X but the school I study at tends to be an advocate for theory Y, the institutional bias may see me suffer academically not for the actual quality of my work, but just for what the work is about.

That's exaclty why you're wrong, philosophy isn't about a school of thought it's about the nature of thought. Simply put, a school is to teach a child how to live in this culture; a graduate of philosophy question's, why this culture?

On 8/4/2024 at 1:00 PM, MSC said:

Or to those that safely agree with their mentors... And there is more than a strong chance that most modern philosophers still don't understand Wittgenstein. 

This certainly means you don't understand what he means in that quote.

On 8/4/2024 at 1:00 PM, MSC said:

Do me a favor Dim, stop assuming. If you don't know what I mean by a word, ask. The actual meaning is based on the use of the word, not your interpretation of it.

I published my assumption just to confirm your meaning, now that you have, it's no longer an assumption... 😉

7 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

As for why I am offering 10k for it: because I didn't have more to offer.

Indeed, money is no substitute for actual friends...

[Daniel McKay]

12 hours ago, dimreepr said:

 

Indeed, money is no substitute for actual friends...

Would you prefer that I offer friends to whoever can solve the problem? I think mine might object to being given as a prize.

[MSC]

19 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

Yeah, I think the difference here is one of starting assumptions. I don't think a normative theory needs to explain why people believe what they do, because what they believe isn't relevant. Everyone in the world could hold one moral view, and it wouldn't bring that view any closer to being true. The truth simply is, regardless of whether we are aware of it. I am not suggesting that answer is simple, but it is objective, and that is the answer I am looking for. Not just one that explains the human moral tapestry, but one that explains morality entire, for all moral agents across all possible worlds.

I did pick up on the Kantian influences earlier. However I believe I said earlier, or have said elsewhere on this forum if not here, that context relativism is a biocentric claim not an anthroprocentric one. I'll use humans as an example most frequently but altogether where you say moral agents across all possible worlds, I say "living beings" and leave it at that. Are you familiar with Schweitzer? 

19 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

One way I like to think about it is in terms of what the job of ethicists are. It sounds like the kind of context relativism you are proposing assumes that ethicists are kind of like proof-readers, trying to make consistent those things that we already think. Is that a fair assessment do you think? I am assuming that ethicists are more like scientists, trying to find a truth about the universe that would be there whether or not we were around to know about it.

I mean I feel like it's both, those arent mutually exclusive roles and I personally believe the roles of an ethicist are a bit broader than that, however my first subject of study was psychology, and moved onto philosophy and then ethics from there. So mine is a multidisciplinary approach and it isn't just confined to human psychology. Context relativism is useful for delineating situations by context typology to arrive at a dynamic description of the moral cognition of living beings, by way of having a lot of explanatory power for the very purpose of inferring facts about morality among all moral agents. Not to mention it gives language a roomier place to go when describing the moral landscape we find ourselves in with this world. When you give language a place to go, and have more to quantify, the more you can design scientific experiments and research to better arrive at truth, moral or otherwise. What is historical case law if not examples of experiments in applied ethics?

19 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

Yeah, I think the difference here is one of starting assumptions. I don't think a normative theory needs to explain why people believe what they do, because what they believe isn't relevant. Everyone in the world could hold one moral view, and it wouldn't bring that view any closer to being true.

What people believe is absolutely relevant. You're people, I'm people. I tend to side with Hume and his views on philosophers doing more to engage with the common person. 

See here is the thing, you've suggested that an ethicist is a sort of scientist, but if that were true, or at least if you were truly an ethicist with that kind of spirit in mind, you'd make "Ability to explain moral disagreement and conflict" as one of your selection criteria for a normative theory, because if your normative theory of ethics can't explain observable phenomenon in the behaviours of moral agents, in what way would that be a "true" theory? 

There is also a bit of an irony in trying to define freedom, by limiting freedom of definition to only your definition of freedom. That's totally unrelated and I'm not trying to make any real point with that, more just pointing out something kind of humourous to me. 

19 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

In either case, it isn't coercive. Having an intuition isn't like me pointing a gun in your face, it doesn't take your choice from you

I could argue that such a moral intuition is coercion by way of removing or reducing your ability to make a free choice that leads you away from a negative consequence, due to what could amount to genetic baggage. Plenty of racists have a "gut feeling" that they just don't trust them *insert any race here* and it could be an old evolutionary remnant of some survival based psychological fear of any outsider due to fears of disease and the like, which isn't so relevant for most humans who aren't part of some uncontacted tribe. I do think you do need to spend a bit of time researching emotional phenomenology and I do think you'd find it interesting but intuition is a very very tricky thing to discuss and define. 

And look I've been down that rabbit hole of apriori reasoning but no matter how I turn it around in my head, we just don't reason like that. Everything we do is based on obsrvation and experience, if not ours then our ancestors. It's inescapable. You cannot seperate morality from moral agents and you can't turn away one group of moral agents beliefs as irrelevant when they are part of your study group and you yourself are locked into the moral cognition of a human being, which operates on the basis that ethics and morality are context dependent, it has to operate on that assumption because every situation it finds itself in is a different context unless you increase the scale of your region of locality to Earth, Sol, Milky way etc but you'll always come back to certain greater contexts we find ourselves in, like being a living being, being a free agent, in our case, being human and being ethicists of some form. Although again, moral psycjologist roles and duties are kind of locked in to what I do with context relativism maybe more so than ethicist.

12 hours ago, dimreepr said:

That's exaclty why you're wrong, philosophy isn't about a school of thought it's about the nature of thought. Simply put, a school is to teach a child how to live in this culture; a graduate of philosophy question's, why this culture?

Didn't you already admit you aren't reading the majority of what we say? So how tf would you know dim? Just piss off, getting on my nerves like seriously go see a therapist. This trolling bullshit has to stop. Get help.

12 hours ago, dimreepr said:

published my assumption just to confirm your meaning, now that you have, it's no longer an assumption

Your reading comprehension is off. I said, no, that's not what I meant. End of discussion. Back on the ignore list for you. Don't know why TF I gave you a second chance but you've blown it. You are so transparent anytime two or more people are having a discussion that you dont understand or in this case, even care enough to read, your jealousy reaction spikes because you don't understand what all the big words are. You're bitter and miserable and that's why you're constantly here everyday pissing and shitting on everything everyone has to say. Every now and then you happen to say something that isn't trash but then a broken clock is right twice a day. Then you go and act like you dont know exactly what you're doing whenever people have had enough of you pressing their buttons. Just fuck off away from me mate. You drive me absolutely crazy with this shit. Admitting you don't fucking read what we say then having the audacity to just say everyone is wrong. How TF would you know?! Don't speak to me on here again. No more chances just get out of my face already.

12 hours ago, dimreepr said:

That's exaclty why you're wrong, philosophy isn't about a school of thought it's about the nature of thought

All I fucking talk about is the nature of thought. Please kindly go back under your bridge. Don't you have goats to pick on?

Edited August 6 by MSC
Editing out the uncalled for insults. Seriously though Dim just stop.

[MSC]

@dimreeprI'm sorry for what I said. It was hurtful and really just spoke of my frustration with myself for not knowing how to communicate with you. There are things we aren't understanding about one another and that is resulting in this conflict between us. I don't know how to simplify the sort of things I talk about but I can tell that you aren't getting a lot of it and that's probably on me for not being able to figure out how to relay some of the more complex ideas to you. I don't think I'm always right, I don't think my ideas are perfect but I've been studying this all long enough to be aware that there are some people out there who will find some pragmatic value in some of my ideas and there is a coherent enough framework there to help at least me through some of the obstacles of life and it really has done that for me, in many ways. Leaving it there. 

There is no TL;DR but please just find the time to read it Dim. I hate being angry at people or feeling like I want to hate them. So I'm letting it go. 

[Daniel McKay]

2 hours ago, MSC said:

I did pick up on the Kantian influences earlier. However I believe I said earlier, or have said elsewhere on this forum if not here, that context relativism is a biocentric claim not an anthroprocentric one. I'll use humans as an example most frequently but altogether where you say moral agents across all possible worlds, I say "living beings" and leave it at that. Are you familiar with Schweitzer? 

I mean I feel like it's both, those arent mutually exclusive roles and I personally believe the roles of an ethicist are a bit broader than that, however my first subject of study was psychology, and moved onto philosophy and then ethics from there. So mine is a multidisciplinary approach and it isn't just confined to human psychology. Context relativism is useful for delineating situations by context typology to arrive at a dynamic description of the moral cognition of living beings, by way of having a lot of explanatory power for the very purpose of inferring facts about morality among all moral agents. Not to mention it gives language a roomier place to go when describing the moral landscape we find ourselves in with this world. When you give language a place to go, and have more to quantify, the more you can design scientific experiments and research to better arrive at truth, moral or otherwise. What is historical case law if not examples of experiments in applied ethics?

What people believe is absolutely relevant. You're people, I'm people. I tend to side with Hume and his views on philosophers doing more to engage with the common person. 

See here is the thing, you've suggested that an ethicist is a sort of scientist, but if that were true, or at least if you were truly an ethicist with that kind of spirit in mind, you'd make "Ability to explain moral disagreement and conflict" as one of your selection criteria for a normative theory, because if your normative theory of ethics can't explain observable phenomenon in the behaviours of moral agents, in what way would that be a "true" theory? 

There is also a bit of an irony in trying to define freedom, by limiting freedom of definition to only your definition of freedom. That's totally unrelated and I'm not trying to make any real point with that, more just pointing out something kind of humourous to me. 

I could argue that such a moral intuition is coercion by way of removing or reducing your ability to make a free choice that leads you away from a negative consequence, due to what could amount to genetic baggage. Plenty of racists have a "gut feeling" that they just don't trust them *insert any race here* and it could be an old evolutionary remnant of some survival based psychological fear of any outsider due to fears of disease and the like, which isn't so relevant for most humans who aren't part of some uncontacted tribe. I do think you do need to spend a bit of time researching emotional phenomenology and I do think you'd find it interesting but intuition is a very very tricky thing to discuss and define. 

And look I've been down that rabbit hole of apriori reasoning but no matter how I turn it around in my head, we just don't reason like that. Everything we do is based on obsrvation and experience, if not ours then our ancestors. It's inescapable. You cannot seperate morality from moral agents and you can't turn away one group of moral agents beliefs as irrelevant when they are part of your study group and you yourself are locked into the moral cognition of a human being, which operates on the basis that ethics and morality are context dependent, it has to operate on that assumption because every situation it finds itself in is a different context unless you increase the scale of your region of locality to Earth, Sol, Milky way etc but you'll always come back to certain greater contexts we find ourselves in, like being a living being, being a free agent, in our case, being human and being ethicists of some form. Although again, moral psycjologist roles and duties are kind of locked in to what I do with context relativism maybe more so than ethicist.

Not particularly familar, but I gather he is a biocentrist. I don't agree that things are worthy of moral consideration merely because they are alive though (or that they are not simply because they are not, though I suspect that, depending on how you define "alive", that may be less relevant).

As to your second point, I may need some clarification on it but I will do my best to answer it. I certainly didn't mean to imply that we couldn't imply scientific rigour to the study of moral psychology, merely that I think we are taking different approaches to what the goal of morality is. I think I am right in saying that you are suggesting that morality is about our moral intution and the things that we value. What I am saying is that it is not, it is about moral truths that would be the same regardless of whether we knew about them and about what actually has value, regardless of whether we value it. That is certainly not to say that moral psychology is a fruitless field of course, merely that it is a different field from ethics. Unless you are saying that we can infer morality among moral agents by reference to our moral psychology because ought implies can, in which case I am sympathetic to that aim, but we would need to consider all possible moral agents, not just the ones that we have access to.

That still wouldn't be coercive though. The hypothetical racist might well have such a gut feeling, but we are capable of raising above those feelings and acting sensibly instead. Their choice isn't taken away from them. They could still, for example, vote for sensible policies that go against their gut feelings. We can recognize that our moral intuitions are wrong and act against them.

As to your last point, two things. First, I don't think a priori reasoning is as difficult or hopeless as you seem to suggest it is. Second, I don't have any issue with taking context into account when determining what the right thing to do is. My theory is a consequentialist one after all, so the context is going to matter a fair bit. Whether tackling a little old lady to the ground is a good thing or not might depend very much on whether they are about to be shot by the notorious Little Old Lady Murderer. I'm certainly not suggesting that context has no place in moral decision making. Not that you have really said that I am saying such a thing, I just wanted to clarify that I wasn't.

 

[dimreepr]

13 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

Would you prefer that I offer friends to whoever can solve the problem? I think mine might object to being given as a prize.

What problem?

11 hours ago, MSC said:

@dimreeprI'm sorry for what I said. It was hurtful and really just spoke of my frustration with myself for not knowing how to communicate with you. There are things we aren't understanding about one another and that is resulting in this conflict between us. I don't know how to simplify the sort of things I talk about but I can tell that you aren't getting a lot of it and that's probably on me for not being able to figure out how to relay some of the more complex ideas to you. I don't think I'm always right, I don't think my ideas are perfect but I've been studying this all long enough to be aware that there are some people out there who will find some pragmatic value in some of my ideas and there is a coherent enough framework there to help at least me through some of the obstacles of life and it really has done that for me, in many ways. Leaving it there. 

There is no TL;DR but please just find the time to read it Dim. I hate being angry at people or feeling like I want to hate them. So I'm letting it go. 

I have read it all and I stand by my posting, there is no conflict between us, you just don't know how to answer my questions.

Listen to this, as opposed to reading it; it may give you a little understanding of the difference between our approach to comprehension.

Where does hate stand in a philosophical argument?

Can I driver there? 

Edited August 6 by dimreepr

[Daniel McKay]

- Dim: The problem that I laid out in the initial post.

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, Daniel McKay said:

- Dim: The problem that I laid out in the initial post.

That's the problem, it's not a problem; the answer is 42, what's the question?

[Daniel McKay]

You are incorrect. It is in fact a problem.

[dimreepr]

11 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

You are incorrect. It is in fact a problem.

If that's all you've got to say, then, I guess, there's nothing more to discuss; good luck with your imagined problem though. 🙏

[TheVat]

Having just started to catch up, I will hold off except to say that it is difficult for me to see morality as something that can be anything objective and independent of what sentient minds value.  Not saying there are no objective biology based aspects (aggression can harm cooperative survival imperatives within a group of social animals, e.g. or eating babies squanders the food investment of gestation) to it, but our moral intuitions seem predominantly mediated by acquired cultural perspective and memetics.  

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

If that's all you've got to say, then, I guess, there's nothing more to discuss; good luck with your imagined problem though. 🙏

Humility when you don't understand something would be a good option for you.  Now have a seat.

[Daniel McKay]

9 hours ago, TheVat said:

Having just started to catch up, I will hold off except to say that it is difficult for me to see morality as something that can be anything objective and independent of what sentient minds value.  Not saying there are no objective biology based aspects (aggression can harm cooperative survival imperatives within a group of social animals, e.g. or eating babies squanders the food investment of gestation) to it, but our moral intuitions seem predominantly mediated by acquired cultural perspective and memetics.  

I would say that our moral intuitions are a combination those social factors and evolutionary ones, but that is only an issue if we think our moral intuitions are a good indicator of moral truth. Given where our moral intuitions come from and how inconsistent they are, I think we can safely say that moral intuitions are not a good indicator of moral facts.

Saying "Objective biology based aspects" suggests to me that we might be taking quite different metaethical approaches that may need to be made explicit to avoid talking at cross-purposes with one another. I would say that moral facts, if they exist at all, are objective and universal facts that apply to all free, rational agents across all possible worlds. That perspective isn't really connected with what things happen to harm cooperative species. I suspect you are of a different metaethical view, would that be fair to say?

[dimreepr]

19 hours ago, TheVat said:

Having just started to catch up, I will hold off except to say that it is difficult for me to see morality as something that can be anything objective and independent of what sentient minds value.  Not saying there are no objective biology based aspects (aggression can harm cooperative survival imperatives within a group of social animals, e.g. or eating babies squanders the food investment of gestation) to it, but our moral intuitions seem predominantly mediated by acquired cultural perspective and memetics.  

Like I said morality is what one can get away with, in the situation one finds oneself, sure there's a cultural moral imperative involved; a soldier for instance will withstand much suffering upto and including death, bc he knows that if he surrenders his knowledge of the secret plan, to kill 100,000 + of the other side, then his family and friend's are at risk; the other side of that moral coin is the interigator, who knows that his family is at risk, if he doesn't make this 'professional killer' suffer enough to force the truth of the millitary build-up, out of this enemy.

I'm not sure which one would suffer the most, but I'd put money on the torturer suffering the longest (assuming that neither are outliers on the spectrum of humanity).

 

Killing or making people suffer is much easier when there's a barrier between the action and the consequence.

[dimreepr]

21 hours ago, TheVat said:

Humility when you don't understand something would be a good option for you.  Now have a seat.

I'm not trying to be superior, I'm trying to find out what the actual problem is; I doubt even a diety could understand his imagination...

[TheVat]

15 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

I would say that our moral intuitions are a combination those social factors and evolutionary ones, but that is only an issue if we think our moral intuitions are a good indicator of moral truth. Given where our moral intuitions come from and how inconsistent they are, I think we can safely say that moral intuitions are not a good indicator of moral facts.

Saying "Objective biology based aspects" suggests to me that we might be taking quite different metaethical approaches that may need to be made explicit to avoid talking at cross-purposes with one another. I would say that moral facts, if they exist at all, are objective and universal facts that apply to all free, rational agents across all possible worlds. That perspective isn't really connected with what things happen to harm cooperative species. I suspect you are of a different metaethical view, would that be fair to say?

Well, for me, harm in this context would have meaning where you have any species that is social...and it is social species that would have evolutionary drivers towards greater cooperation, language use, and developing a moral system.  Cooperation is essential for social animals, and developing a moral system would seem key to that.  Solitary predators, for example, would not have a moral system at all and would probably not reach the intellectual capacity for language and conceptual sharing.  Perhaps those predators are rational agents, but only in the sense of acting so as to favor the next meal or the next f--k.  So yes, I guess my metaethical view, is that ethics is for social creatures who move beyond pure genetics and instinct towards memetics and cooperative culture.  As Wittgenstein said, if a lion could talk we wouldn't understand it.  Or discuss ethical matters.  

Philosophy is not my field, so I hope I have somewhat explicated my linking morality to a social animal.  I am mainly here to learn.  

[Daniel McKay]

Yeah, I understand what you mean. But again, you are assuming that morality is something to do with the moral systems that social creatures come up with in order to live together more harmoniously. I don't think it is. I think moral truths (if there are any) are there whether or not we find out about them and, if the solitary predator ever becomes sufficiently rational to be a moral agent, then it would be bound by the same moral rules as any of us. I tend to agree that personhood is quite hard to develop in solitary predator species, but it seems plausible that it has probably happened at least a few times somewhere in the universe, either through a great deal of luck or perhaps through the artificial selection of another species trying to make it happen. Lions as they are now seem fairly clearly not to be moral agents. But if we were to breed a lion that was a free, rational agent in the sense that we are (putting aside the pretty substantial practical problems with that), it would be morally wrong for such a lion to maul a human to death (at least, most of the time it would be)

[dimreepr]

2 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

Yeah, I understand what you mean. But again, you are assuming that morality is something to do with the moral systems that social creatures come up with in order to live together more harmoniously. I don't think it is. I think moral truths (if there are any) are there whether or not we find out about them and, if the solitary predator ever becomes sufficiently rational to be a moral agent, then it would be bound by the same moral rules as any of us. I tend to agree that personhood is quite hard to develop in solitary predator species, but it seems plausible that it has probably happened at least a few times somewhere in the universe, either through a great deal of luck or perhaps through the artificial selection of another species trying to make it happen. Lions as they are now seem fairly clearly not to be moral agents. But if we were to breed a lion that was a free, rational agent in the sense that we are (putting aside the pretty substantial practical problems with that), it would be morally wrong for such a lion to maul a human to death (at least, most of the time it would be)

So the problem/question is, what would you do if you're hungry enough or alone enough or etc. to step over what you now consider to be a moral line/imperative?

Not really a problem you can intellectually investigate, it's more of a physical examination of one's price...

Edited August 10 by dimreepr

[Daniel McKay]

12 hours ago, dimreepr said:

So the problem/question is, what would you do if you're hungry enough or alone enough or etc. to step over what you now consider to be a moral line/imperative?

Not really a problem you can intellectually investigate, it's more of a physical examination of one's price...

Assuming that you're imagining the person doing something wrong, that isn't a problem for ethics. People do things that are wrong all the time, they don't become less wrong because someone did them.

[dimreepr]

10 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

Assuming that you're imagining the person doing something wrong, that isn't a problem for ethics. People do things that are wrong all the time, they don't become less wrong because someone did them.

Bolded mine, indeed but it's not a problem for morality either, so what is the problem?

Ethically, doing wrong is a double edged sword; for instance, a rich man is morally obliged to provide employment or alms to the poor, so they aren't put in a position where they're forced to break the moral convention.

[Daniel McKay]

I agree that it isn't a problem for morality. I'm not sure what you mean by what is the problem. You were the one that raised this as if it were a problem. I suppose it is a problem in the sense that it's a bad thing that someone is doing something wrong, but people doing bad things is not something that causes issues for any moral theory.

[dimreepr]

13 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

I agree that it isn't a problem for morality. I'm not sure what you mean by what is the problem. You were the one that raised this as if it were a problem. I suppose it is a problem in the sense that it's a bad thing that someone is doing something wrong, but people doing bad things is not something that causes issues for any moral theory.

Ok let's go back to the start, your OP in my view isn't a problem, it's a question. This is my first post:

Quote

You wiegh your so called freedom against the lifestyle you choose to live; for instance the imagined freedom of a billionaire is being able to do exactly what he wants, within the boundaries of their self-imposed prison; while a mountain man's imagined freedom is to do exactly what he wants to, in the dark and cut off from the world of help if they need it, bc they'll be spending every hour of daylight in the summer, preparing for winter; most of us think we're free, but we've all gotta walk to the shop's when we need something to eat and pay the water-rates when we need to drink/wash/water...

In what way does this not answer your question?

I want to understand you, but that doesn't just happen bc we text the same language, we need a mutual experience to set the stage for the 'story/play/theater' to happen on.

[Daniel McKay]

Dim - I mean, it doesn't answer in any way as it appears to be aimed at a different question. I'm looking for a solution to how to weigh freedom over different kinds of things, not just in a pragmatic "what do you want to do", hypothetical imperative kind of way, but in a universal, objective, categorical imperative kind of way. It isn't about how to determine the value of your own freedom to do various things in relation to one another, it's about how you determine how to value the freedom of different people to do different things against one another correctly.

[dimreepr]

11 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

Dim - I mean, it doesn't answer in any way as it appears to be aimed at a different question. I'm looking for a solution to how to weigh freedom over different kinds of things, not just in a pragmatic "what do you want to do", hypothetical imperative kind of way, but in a universal, objective, categorical imperative kind of way. It isn't about how to determine the value of your own freedom to do various things in relation to one another, it's about how you determine how to value the freedom of different people to do different things against one another correctly.

Unless, by freedom, you mean free-will, then I have indeed answered your question.

There is no univesal, objective freedom; even within a single culture, at whatever scale you look, there are different levels of freedom available to each individual e.g. a child has very limited freedom when compared to a parent, and each individual will view their levels of freedom with differing levels of satisfaction.

11 hours ago, Daniel McKay said:

it's about how you determine how to value the freedom of different people to do different things against one another correctly.

And we're back to your moral standards and the containment/restrictions, presumably, of the people who you consider are not doing things correctly.

[Daniel McKay]

Dim - I'm not sure what you mean by your second comment. By "freedom" I mean the ability of free (possessing free will), rational (possessing the capacity for rationality) agents (conscious entities capable of making some choice) to understand and make those choices that belong to them.