Arguments for moral realism
I've always been somewhat at a loss when talking about moral realism. To a large degree it just doesn't fit with my outlook on the world. It not so much that the arguments against realism are convincing as much as none of the arguments for it are. I guess from my perspective I wander, why would there be ways in which we should act - in the realist sense.
Have any of you heard some convincing arguments for realism.
Have any of you heard some convincing arguments for realism.
Comments (139)
However, if one isn't a realist about the world, then one could ignore evolutionary reasons for why we behave the way we do in favor of grounding morality in something else, like God or the platonic realm, I suppose. But then one needs to account for the various disagreements over ethics. Why is it that we can fundamentally disagree about how to behave if there is an objective moral code we're all supposedly aware of?
So it's incumbent on the anti-realist to tell us why this truth-evaluability is either somehow mistaken, or we're all massively incompetent with the sentences proffering such claims, or the 'truth' they express derives from things other than what they seem to derive from, etc. I'm not saying these things aren't possible, but as a starting point anti-realism is the one that has work to do.
It would be different if moral claims were in some obvious way different form non-moral ones, but they're not.
But look, this is a ridiculous question. Surely you do think there are ways you should act?
But moral realism isn't simply about the semantics of normative propositions, otherwise there wouldn't be any difference between error theory and non-cognitivism. There's legitimately something that makes them true or false; the presence or absence of moral properties in the world.
In my opinion, moral realism is not compatible with a naturalistic worldview. It's either too spooky or not "morally" sufficient.
1) "It's wrong to torture children." This is a moral claim, and it's also true. So there are true moral claims.
2) "It's wrong to torture children" is true because it's wrong to torture children. What makes it true is the fact that it's wrong to torture children. Since this is expressed by a moral claim, it's presumably a moral fact.
3) So, there is a moral fact. QED.
Whereas, I would think it is wrong to want to have sex with children, whether or not one does so, or whether or not it involves viewing, and being stimulated by, an animation or simulation. Fortunately, I have never felt sexually attracted to children, but I imagine that, for those who do, it could a source of considerable conflict and a very difficult thing to deal with. I have had conflicting desires, i.e. done things which my conscience says I ought not to do, but that is not one of them (fortunately).
Quoting Marchesk
Excellent question, and one of the stumbling blocks for moral realism.
To be honest, I think there's a kind of collective memory burned into the European mentality, arising from the 30 Years War and the worst episodes of the Inquisition, and many other sorry episodes of religiously-inspired violence from the past. Often, religious claims were involved in these conflicts, and they were conducted by people who generally felt they were on the side of the Right and the Good. And it's natural, reviewing all that, to want to wash your hands of the whole thing. But unfortunately, the fact that well-meaning people can often be wrong, doesn't absolve us of the responsibility to pursue what is right.
So is the idea "if there is an objective X, we can't disagree about X?"
But that's nonsense, right?
I deny the ultimate truth aptness of this claim. It's not that torturing children is actually okay or righteous, but that there is no actual real moral truth to the matter. Moral truths, in my opinion, are based on agreement and rationalizing within a system of relative coherence and not correspondence.
What is the difference between being truth apt and ultimately truth apt?
I ask because the default position seems to be that there is no difference, since there is only one truth predicate with which we tend to be competent – 'true.'
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Quoting darthbarracuda
But what can this mean other than to say that it's not actually or really wrong to torture children? But that's wrong, so your position must be wrong. And what would it mean to say that it's wrong to torture children, but not really or actually wrong to torture them? That just sounds like a contradiction.
It means that I have the preference, or attitude, that looks down on torturing children (non-cognitivism), or it means that I legitimately believe that torturing children is wrong but understand that this is a belief that exists outside the philosophy room (error theory).
There's nothing incoherent about believing morality to be a fiction, but nevertheless see it as a useful or preferable fiction. Especially since it's not really practical to be a nihilist about everything.
Or, you do 'legitimately believe it,' but only when you're not doing philosophy? Do your beliefs change when you start doing philosophy?
I don't think there is any legitimate ground for the proposition that torturing children is wrong that isn't dependent on the mind, particularly the unconscious.
But it is useful to continue acting as it morality does exist, not only so others don't see me as a psychopath but also because I nevertheless have moral compulsions that motivate me to act in a certain way. I feel the universe should "be" a certain way, even if I know there isn't ultimately any mind-independent reason for the must-be.
I'd be curious to know what you think makes moral propositions true. Without God (or even with him...), there's nothing, from what I can tell, preventing us from asking "so what?"
What does it matter whether it's 'dependent on the mind' or not?
Quoting darthbarracuda
If you don't think torturing kids is wrong, but you pretend to think that so others don't suspect you of thinking torturing kids isn't wrong, aren't you a psychopath?
Quoting darthbarracuda
You mean, you think moral claims are true?
Quoting darthbarracuda
What makes anything true? Before asking that question, we need to agree on the simple fact that they are true. But a deflationary account seems promising.
Because that's the whole issue at stake here, whether or not moral propositions are in some way dependent on the mind or not for their truth. People typically think and act as though moral propositions are indicative of real properties and not just mental states.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Erm, no, because I'm still abiding by and studying morality. I just don't see it as being actually grounded in anything. Just like I can believe the legal system is wholly dependent on minds but nevertheless not be a criminal.
Quoting The Great Whatever
No, I think moral claims aim at truth but always fail to attain it, because there is no truth to moral claims, because there are no objective, real moral truthmakers.
Quoting The Great Whatever
I fail to see why. In order to agree that something is true, we need to know what truth is, which you said apparently comes after determining what is and is not true. This isn't coherent.
Is that the issue? I thought the issue was whether there are 'moral facts' or not? Nothing about the mind was mentioned.
Are mental states not 'real properties?' What relevance does any of this have?
Quoting darthbarracuda
But surely you think certain things are actually illegal? And that there are legal facts?
Quoting darthbarracuda
So, if there is no truth to moral claims, it must be that there's no truth to 'torturing children is wrong.' And so you must be committed to thinking it isn't true that torturing children is wrong. Or what am I missing?
Quoting darthbarracuda
Is torturing children wrong? By your own lights, it seems you can't ascertain the answer to this question until you have a philosophical theory of truth. But this would make you either an idiot or a psychopath.
The relevance is that morality by and large is phenomenologically experienced as a sort of command structure from elsewhere, a series of hypothetical imperatives and obligations that don't derive their existence from the unconscious mind.
So yeah, if we're gonna say mental states are facts, then sure morality has a factual basis. But there's really no reason to go this route, because it's clear that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about objective, mind-independent truthmakers of normative claims and to say otherwise is a red herring.
Now of course if you're an idealist, morality is not going to be mind-independent because nothing is mind-independent. But this doesn't necessarily make you a realist either, since you can still see morality as ultimately subjective.
Quoting The Great Whatever
From a purely descriptive sense, yes, just as I can say certain things are commonly seen by humans as moral or immoral without attaching any prescription to the description.
Quoting The Great Whatever
I'm saying the belief that torturing children is wrong has no mind-independent factual basis. That is all. Just because something is a hallucination doesn't mean it's worthless.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Again, this doesn't have much to do with anything, since I already said that moral fictionalism is not only a rational position to hold but also a comfortable position to hold. Like how you can play a game while understanding it's not actually reality. We exist, and we live and interact with other people, and figuring out how we should live that satisfies us in various respects, not altogether self-interested, is important.
1) "It's wrong to torture children." This is a moral claim, and it's also true. So there are true moral claims.
Yeh if someone was torturing a child I would try to stop it. I would condemn someone who tortured children. But the question isn't asking about that. There is something more to saying 'it is wrong to torture children', something that I likely don't agree with.
I'm leaving it vague because it's vague in the question. I don't agree that somehow, there are just somethings that us as humans should for some reason not do.
From what your saying, it is is just self evident that certain actions are morally wrong. I struggle to see the self evidence of whatever is outside actions to prevent it and human condemnation of it.
Of course it's wrong... wake up. To witness such a thing, or be subject to it, you'd not only realize it to be wrong, but trauma inducing, haunting -- effecting you the rest of your life.
Morality is inherently about subjects that can be harmed, so that it is dependent in some way on subjects that can be harmed is no problem, or drawback. The scope need not be wider, and it need not account for anything beyond this. Living things are a certain ways, and share certain interests which make some things objectively better and worse for them.
The only problem is why one ought to care at all in the first place, not whether moral statements can be justified or not. This is a nonsense question though, because we always already do. The only real problem is on the finer details where moral disputes lie, where it isn't obvious what's right and wrong. That's where the adults play. This is baby games.
Ideally, meta-ethics shouldn't interfere with the practice of normative ethics. We're moral beings, even if morality is ultimately groundless. We'll continue to be moral regardless.
What kind of ground are you looking for? What kind of thing could make you, or compel you to be good? These seem to be the major claims of absence, but what would these things be like, if they were to exist?
It's not incoherent, but it's also not binding. If you believe it's a fiction, then you're acting, it's easy enough just to turn around and say, OK I don't actually believe it.
If you agree then the terms ''objective'' and ''subjective'' must apply or have meaning in the social domain.
Society is a form of meta-existence with the social group taking on a ''life'' of its own with its own sub-categories of organization and rules that govern interactions between them. One set of rules is morality.
As I said before morality is restricted in scope to a society. Therfore we may confine our questions on it in that domain. Is morality ''objective'' or ''subjective'' in a social context?
Clearly, there are acts that run counter to the health of a society. Torture, rape, murder, stealing, lying, all are evidently ''anti-social''. These are ''objectively'' bad.
Altruism, charity, equality, self-lessness, etc. are unequivocally beneficial to society. These are ''objectively'' good.
Is it wrong for tigers to torture children? Is it wrong for other children to torture children, even if we would normally not hold such a child responsible for their actions? Is it wrong in times of desperation to abandon new-born infants with a near-zero chance of survival?
This doesn't support moral realism. It just denies error theory and non-cognitivism.
Compare with:
"It is illegal to sell alcohol to those under 18 years of age" is a legal claim and it's true, and what makes it true is the fact that it's illegal to sell alcohol to those under 18 years of age.
Nothing about this is inconsistent with the claim that its truth is – or could be, if it incidentally isn't – relative to each country (or other legislative area), or with the claim that it's made true by the decisions of people, rather than by some objective feature of the world (as is the case of claims regarding the chemical composition of water, for example).
What exactly is your argument here. Looks like mixing a whole bunch of stuff together.
On the one hand your speaking about the justification of moral statements one the other how we always already care. But there clearly is a disconnect between the two being that according to the realist they are different things.
1. To the realist the caring is not an essential element of the moral statement. Some statements are true whether or not a specific person cares about them.
2. From the phenomenological perspective the whole of morality is in that caring. Morality is some description of our moral experience - of the real experiences and how we car during them.
The fact that the question of moral motivation comes up (and that you brought it up) is indicative of this disconnect. No one wanders whether them being hungry means they should eat. Just like people don't question 'why do X just because X is good' when X is something they already feel strongly compelled to do.
This is contradictory. What makes us moral if not that which grounds morality?
But this just makes no sense. Following this line of thought, we have to be anti-realists about all claims of human psychology, since those are 'mind-dependent' (after all, no human mind, no subject of human psychology).
Clearly some features of the world include humans, and are so because of humans. This doesn't make them not real in any interesting sense. And of course these things may still be grounded in things that are not 'human minds' or whatever it might be.
Quoting darthbarracuda
But I'm not asking you whether certain things are 'commonly seen' as moral or immoral. I'm asking you whether they are moral or immoral.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Okay, but I just want to understand your position. Is your position that it's not wrong to torture children, but that you pretend that it's wrong to torture them for convenience?
???
So you don't think it's wrong to torture children? You disagree with that claim?
Quoting shmik
Wouldn't this make you some kind of psychopath though? Surely you think you shouldn't torture children? :s
Quoting shmik
So let me see if I understand. You don't think anything is wrong (or right). Is that your position?
Especially these two words: "moral" and "objective."
edit:
Yup, in the first reply already:
Quoting Marchesk
They are, but not in the sense that is meant by moral realism. Perhaps a better phrasing would be "impersonal features of the world".
It's not. It's what distinguishes it from various forms of moral anti-realism. If moral claims are made true by the verdict of some "moral legislature" then something like relativism, ideal observer theory, or divine command theory would be the case, depending on the nature of this authority.
You seem to think that it is simply a trichotomy of realism, error theory, and noncognitivism, but that's just not the case. There are meta-ethical positions that accept that there are moral facts but that are not realist.
So how do we evaluate the truth of moral claims? What sort of things would verify or falsify or in some lesser sense support or oppose claims like "it is wrong to steal" or "you ought not steal"?
I don't understand the point of the question. What it means to be an anti-realist about the claims of human psychology (whatever that would be) is not necessarily what it means to be an anti-realist about moral claims.
A moral realist won't accept that claims like "it is wrong to steal" are made true by the decisions or attitudes of some person or group of people. They will say that some feature of the act itself (or consequence) is what makes it true. They might be a naturalist and reduce this moral feature to some empirical feature like doing harm or they might be a non-naturalist and claim that moral goodness (or wrongness) is a non-empirical feature that is recognised via intuition, or possibly reason.
This seems to me an idiosyncratic definition of moral realism. What is your source on it?
If you have an idiosyncratic view on the matter, that's fine, but then, it's not what I was addressing.
Quoting Michael
The notion that facts having to do with people are somehow exempt from being 'real' in the sense in which realism of any sort is interested seems to me mistaken. Features of an act itself obviously have to do with people and their actions as well. Surely we don't want to say that morality and its grounding has nothing to do with people and their actions: that's precisely what morality is (at least in large part) about.
Those were the two points I thought significant that were raised in the thread. I didn't pluck them from the aether.
You don't think that there are a lot of people that aren't sure whether they should eat or not just because they're hungry? Check yo privilege. Some of us want to stay pretty. I definitely have much less indecision about whether or not I should torture, steal, or lie when I feel like it than whether I ought to eat.
Anti-realism isn't un-realism. This persistent belief that if you're an anti-realist about X then you think that X isn't real is mistaken.
I didn't say it has nothing to do with people. I said that the moral realist will argue that something about the act of stealing (which includes its affect on people) is what makes the claim "it is wrong to steal" true. They wouldn't accept – unlike when it comes to matters of the law – that the claim is made true by the verdict of some relevant moral authority, or that whether or not the claim is true is relative to particular individuals or cultures, depending on their attitudes to the act.
I think you have an idiosyncratic interpretation of what moral realism is, so this conversation isn't fruitful. I can let shmik answer for whether he was seeking arguments for moral realism in this more restricted sense.
Just as an example, one of the historical bulwarks of moral realism is command theory, which does accept that certain things are immoral because an authority says they are.
By command theory do you mean something like divine command theory or prescriptivism? Because as per the breakdown here, the former is a type of subjectivism and the latter a type of noncognitivism.
In any case, I think we've resolved that this issue is verbal, right?
My position is that the common conception of morality is that morality is an objective and mind-independent source of guidelines for living, and that the moral anti-realist rejects this. Perhaps morality is a social phenomenon grounded in agreement and compromise.
I dislike the term "convenience" as it makes it seem like I don't have any emotional investment in morality when in fact I do. It's just that I don't think there's anything more to morality other than impulses from the unconscious and agreement between members of a society. These sorts of things can nevertheless be quite causally powerful, but nevertheless fail to qualify for "moral realism".
Quoting Thorongil
I meant morality in the realist sense is groundless. It doesn't exist.
Quoting Wayfarer
Right, exactly. "Technically" speaking I don't actually "believe" it, but for all purposes I do because I act as though I do. It's practical, conventional, and comfortable to have morality instead of constantly reminding yourself that nothing actually matters in the end. Especially in situations where you have to make a choice, since error theory doesn't just magically transport you elsewhere where you don't have to make choices anymore. Something has to guide our action, and I find that phenomenologically-based morality does this quite well and is more robust and dependable than both moral realism and egoism.
Sure, but that we can so profoundly disagree about what's right and wrong in many cases, particularly across cultures is what makes it questionable. It's different than some ordinary fact that we can have consensus on. Let's take slavery as an example. It's just as bad as torturing children, yet it has been defended vigorously by various cultures and individuals over time. It's even been claimed that slavery was objectively moral, in that God ordained slaves to be in that position in life.
Yeah but the same can be applied to aesthetics, and the case for realism qua aesthetics is even less well supported than morality. It seems quite clear that a lot of what human beings find tasteful, interesting or beautiful is particular to human idiosyncrasies, and is not some objective feature of the world.
As an example, say we end up using Mars to dump all our trash on until it becomes an ugly, smelly planet by human standards. Is it ugly to the universe? Is it ugly to some alien creature that feasts off trash?
Back to morality. Would aliens find torturing human children to be immoral? Maybe, but maybe it would depend on their culture and what it means for aliens to conceive. Would the universe care about us torturing kids? It doesn't seem like the universe cares at all what kind of bad things go down. It's not even a proper question to ask.
So then, morality, like aesthetics, is dependent on human values, which are not objective. They're particular to us. They don't exist independent of us, unless you want to argue God or Platonism.
There are other examples. Some cultures have practiced human sacrifice, probably as a sacrifice to their gods. Then there's female circumcision, untouchable class distinctions, conquest by war, and many other abominable practices that were seen as justifiable and even good. There's probably even been some offering of children as a sacrifice, given a couple references in the Old Testament.
And then there's how the Spartans treated their kids to toughen them up, which might be considered as a form of torture to modern values.
But where are they discovered from? Nature is no guide to moral behavior, plus the whole is-ought distinction. It's left to human culture, and human cultures vary quite a bit. Individuals and groups within a culture often disagree a lot on what's moral.
So to TGW's point that disagreement doesn't mean there's not an objective reality, this is true. However, we have no justification for thinking so, because we can't know it. I think it goes farther than that, actually. Moral values only exist in social groups, and social groups disagree on what's moral, therefore there is no real standard.
Of course I don't think it is wrong to torture children, if I did I wouldn't have made this thread.
I would view moral realism in what you call the restricted sense from your conversation with Michael.
Moral realists hold that they are saying a fact. Being against moral realism is not the same as psychopathy. To assess my psychopathy it what would be relevant to look at my attitudes towards people not whether I hold that there are true normative facts about human interaction.
Exactly why I believe naturalism is insufficient grounds to justify moral realism.
I'm not sure about this. It seems to me that certain things are beautiful and others less so, or not. Isn't this a kind of realism about aesthetics? Certainly I don't think my beholding them makes them beautiful, rather I appreciate that they are (and others can too).
Quoting Marchesk
So, is the idea that if people defend different sides of an issue, there's no objective truth to the matter?
Quoting Marchesk
Yeah, but all those things are wrong, right?
Quoting Marchesk
This is interesting, because the construction 'find torturing children immoral' sounds like nonsense to me. You don't find things immoral, any more than you find them, say, made of glass. You can think something is immoral, sure, but then you can think anything.
Quoting shmik
OK, so you don't think it's wrong to torture children. I'm not sure, then, if we can come to understanding on this point, since I'm not sure how I'd convince you of something like that, which I take to be so obvious.
You behold them as beautiful because of the kind of creature and individual you are, not because they are beautiful. A turkey vulture likely finds the smell of dead carcasses to be intoxicating. Humans find it revolting. But okay, that's a different topic.
It is interesting how in the past you have defending radical subjectivism, and I've defended realism about the world, yet here we are totally the opposite side.
To me the whole question is a non issue. I don't hold that there is something about the world that makes killing children wrong.
Do you hold that saying 'it is wrong to torture children' is synonymous with 'its repulsive to torture children'?
I don't deny this, but isn't this true of anything? I behold rocks as solid because of the sort of creature I am, right?
'Repulsive' can be relativized to groups or individuals – 'repulsive to me,' 'repulsive to humans,' etc. I understand what this relativization means: it means that whatever is repulsive to x produces repulsion/revulsion in x (which is itself just a fact about the world). I'm not sure what 'wrong to me,' etc. would mean (is that grammatical?), other than something like 'I think x is wrong.'
Yeh that's part of my issue. I'm unwilling to take on the metaphysical commitments that I think are necessary to say that 'X is wrong'. Repulsive is as far as I can go.
If for you there it is so obvious that there is something more - then yeh, it doesn't fit with my outlook as I said in my OP.
Yes, but only because I generally believe in my own epistemic faultiness. Because of the nature of belief, I can't pick out any single moral belief I have that's wrong (else I wouldn't believe it).
Quoting shmik
So when people say torturing children is wrong, you don't agree with them?
That seems like an unusual position to me.
Quoting The Great Whatever
To me this conversation is similar to if you said to me, 'torturing children is wrong because it's against the bible'. When I respond that I don't believe in the bible's authority you think its strange that I'm OK with torturing children.
You seem to want to say that 'torturing children is wrong' without a 'because'. For me that doesn't make any sense. That gap between my aversion to the thought of it (torturing children), and it being a fact is insurmountable to me.
If someone says to me torturing children is wrong - I would likely say one a 3 things.
1. Nothing is wrong.
2. The way we use moral language barely makes any sense. Traditionally there was a reason that made something wrong, whether divine command or that it was somehow bad for our flourishing. Once we divorced our moral language from those reasons it stops referring to anything.
3. Yes it is horrible.
Sure, but I don't think it's likely.
Haven't you ever changed your mind about something?
Quoting shmik
But I've invoked no authority at all. You have said yourself that you don't think torturing children is wrong. I'm just pointing out that that's an odd belief, and I'm not sure how to convince you otherwise.
Quoting shmik
Do all statements of fact require a 'because?'
Quoting shmik
Wouldn't a more reasonable response be to say, 'you're right?'
For morality and aesthetics, I would say yes, because we have no other way of determining their truth than what people find moral or beautiful.
It's different with empirical or mathematical claims, because we do have means to investigate independent of what one group or another thinks. There are still some people who remain convinced the world is flat, but they're simply wrong. This is easily shown.
But if we have two cultures, where one thinks that torturing kids in some situations is moral, and the other disagrees, then what independent means is their to determine who's right?
Shouldn't you look at (or otherwise experience) the thing itself, to find out if it's beautiful, rather than asking or observing whether people find it beautiful?
Quoting Marchesk
Really? What are those methods?
So when I find a movie or song to be beautiful and moving, and then other people, perhaps even friends or family, find it to be otherwise, who is right? Am I beholding the movie or song correctly, or are they?
Sorry, did an edit to try to make my point more clear.
Quoting The Great Whatever
I get that anti-realism isn't the norm, but so what? I don't go along with every position that is intuitively compelling if I think it's flawed.
Those would be scientific, logical or mathematical methods. They're objective.
Why would the culture's opinions matter? Just because someone has an opinion that p, doesn't mean that p. No?
So you are the arbitrator of what's beautiful?
Because there is no other fact of the matter.
Quoting Marchesk
No; whether the object is beautiful is. Of course, I can often tell whether an object is beautiful by seeing (etc.) it.
Even though people disagree with you? What makes so sure?
No, but do you think that moral facts are exactly the same as other facts with the only difference being their subject matter?
Normally you could check if someone told you that there was a cat on the mat.
Right, and in some cases we have objective means of determining who's right. But this is not so with aesthetics or morality.
No, consider taste:
Me: This fruitcake is the best tasting stuff on Earth. You: fruit cake is disgusting. It should never have been made. It's an abomination to human taste buds.
Turkey Vulture: might as well be a rock. (I have no idea whether turkey vultures have an interest in fruit cake but I'm guessing some animals would be totally disinterested).
What is the truth about whether fruit cake tastes amazing? It's entirely a subjective matter. There is no objective, or real fact of the matter.
Shouldn't that tell you something? If I claimed that New York was the capital of the US, you could show me how I'm wrong.
The point is that there is no objective truth of the matter about whether fruit cake tastes well. In fact, the taste of fruit cake is entirely a creature and individual matter, for those who can taste fruit cake as anything.
Realism - there is no real taste value. Similarly, there are no real moral or aesthetic values. Only subjective or culturally defined ones.
Along with all other maps, official documents, governing bodies, etc?
But it's not the best example of realism, because humans somewhat arbitrarily (for historical reasons) determine what cities are the capitols.
Quoting The Great Whatever
DC would still be the intersubjective capitol, but for such a person, I'm not going to hold my breath on any realist claims from them.
Are we not discussing the case for or against moral realism? I'm confused at your confusion. If morality is no better than beholding a beautiful object for any given individual, then how is it real?
I think an individual can see whether an object is beautiful by beholding it, but that the object is beautiful doesn't mean that their beholding it makes it beautiful. It already was; they just saw that it was.
But what's your rationale for this? It just sounds like an arbitrary claim where you have no means of ascertaining the truth of the matter, since other individuals can see the same object as ugly, and there is nothing else to something being beautiful than our perception of it.
I'm guessing that this all stems from your metaphysical radical subjectivism, where there is no objective truth of the matter, so all truth is whatever the individual beholds.
But that's not true at all. For example, I can say 'I bet/hope that painting is beautiful – so I hope someone gets to see it!' and this makes perfect sense, even knowing no one has seen it. But for this to make sense, it has to have been beautiful independent of anyone's seeing it. In fact, that's why we want to go see it, because it's beautiful.
There do exist sado masochists. One particularly nasty individual in the early 20th century tortured and killed a bunch of kids. He got off on that stuff.
Reason I bring it up is because you have vigorously defended hedonism, and in conjunction with knowing something is beautiful just by perceiving it, how do you account for such individuals? Are they wrong?
Or because other human beings have similar aesthetic tastes? How do you get from people having aesthetic experiences to the object being aesthetically pleasing independent (real) of anyone?
Wrong about what? That what they did was pleasant to them? No that's just a fact. That what they did was okay? If they thought that, then clearly they're wrong.
Quoting Marchesk
Because we can make claims about beauty that wouldn't make any sense if the object's beauty required perception of it. Yet they do make sense; so it can't be that... etc.
For example, suppose you say 'there was a beautiful painting that no one had ever seen locked inside a cellar.' That's not incoherent or contradictory. Or make it a beautiful flower in an uninhabited part of the world, if that's easier.
What makes them wrong, though? Because the rest of us say so?
Don't get me wrong, I think it's immoral in the extreme in the non-realist sense. I just don't see how one can philosophically make the case for moral realism.
No.
Quoting Marchesk
Is there a difference between determining something and objectively determining something? Clearly I can determine it, and so can you, since we already did.
We happen to be in agreement that torturing kids is wrong. But I'm sure we can find moral issues that we will strongly disagree with. What then?
The best thing to do would probably be to try to reduce our disagreement to a more fundamental one, to find out whether one of us was being inconsistent or was simply mistaken, or whether there was some deeper principle we didn't agree on. I don't think there's a surefire way to resolve disputes between more basic principles, but morality is in no sense unique on this front.
Otherwise, I might think you had the opinion I disagreed with because you were not sufficiently sensitive to whatever made me think the way I did, and so would recommend that you have a certain kind of experience that would allow you to remedy the deficiency I perceived in you. For example, a lack of empathy often comes from not being familiar the way in which, or the degree to which, other people suffer, and time around them, or simply witnessing what happens to them, can fix this. Of course some people are just incapable of empathy, so this will not work with them – but then, they seem to be 'morally blind' in the way that someone can be visually blind, and so visual evidence can't be presented to them.
Because I can sort of see how one would argue for moral realism on those grounds. But I'm an external world realist, so if morality isn't found out there, then it isn't real in my book.
I think some sort of case can be made for hedonism, but that maybe it can't be made in quite the way it traditionally has. I'm a little uncertain of the moral status of pleasure.
I don't think it's really robust. A moral realist acts like 'his life depends on it', whereas if it's simply pragmatic, then there's no such principle at stake. I think, for you (and many people) 'belief' of any kind is a stumbling block, so you have to come up with a kind of synthetic alternative.
According to this understanding, truths about what is conceived to be the impersonal objective nature reflect the actuality of that impersonal 'objective' nature and truths about personal subjective nature reflect the actuality of personal ( and interpersonal, by extension) 'subjective' nature. To insist that moral truths should reflect the actuality of impersonal objective nature in order to be grounded in reality would be to commit a category error.
Happy to hear about truths about personal subjective nature which reflect our personal subjective nature.
Do you think there are any truths about human subjective nature? You know, things like people don't (generally) like to be used, objectified, raped, thieved from, tortured, bullied, deceived, humiliated, and so on?
Or pulling the lever to change the tracks so that the trolley kills just one person rather than five. So to repeat a question I asked earlier (not directed specifically at you; just offered in general to the reader), how do we evaluate the truth of moral claims? What sort of things would verify or falsify or in some lesser sense support or oppose claims like "it is wrong to steal" or "you ought not steal"? Is it an empirical matter? Rational? Intuitive? The answer might shed light on the meta-ethical question as well.
I am very dubious about 'the trolley problem' because of its artificiality. I suppose as a classroom exercise it's useful for focussing the mind on the issues involved. But in real life, again, we're not generally going to face anything like that choice. Mostly our moral and ethical challenges will be more quotidian. But that doesn't make them any less important, especially because they're real, rather than hypothetical, and even more so because many of them might not seem to matter.
After all, what's a bit of stationary?
So my answer as to why it is wrong to steal is rooted partially in the kind of upbringing I had, but it has been re-inforced by the kind of value system I have chosen to pursue. I envision life as being a spiritual path, and the idea of dharma - duty or right action - is fundamental to that. Living that way is in a sense like tuning an instrument or a vehicle, so that it runs smoothly. Ethical breaches are like leakages or malfunctions in the instrument. You can get away with a certain number, but ultimately they will stop the vehicle from running altogether. For example if your 'minor ethical lapses' lead to defrauding your employer to support your gaming habit, then you end up in jail. I guess that's the 'slippery slope' argument but the principle is applicable here.
I suppose, reflecting on the OP, I want such things to matter, and I hope and trust that they really do. The fact that so many seem to think that it might not really matter what you do, is, to me, a sign of something amiss, some kind of incipient malfunction or deficiency. What we do matters, and we have to be able to deal with that. OK, it might not actually matter much in the 'grand scheme' - like I might be a bookstore clerk or a driver, just a cog in the machine, as far as the big picture is concerned. But nevertheless, whatever has come my way, I have to do what is required. That ought to be the basis of a realist attitude towards ethics.
I recall a Gandhi quote along the lines of 'even though what you do might seem to be inconsequential, it is important that you do it'. But then Gandhi was a conscientious Hindu, one for whom the practice of dharma came before anything else. That is what is most often lacking in the modern secular world; as someone already observed in this thread, if indeed we are products of 'mindless evolution', then the only dharma is that dicated by the selfish gene. That is the kind of attitude our modern secular scientism engenders, that we are a kind of accidental byproduct of a meaningless process. Against that background, 'nothing really matters', in the sense depicted by Camus or Sartre, but it is our job to make it matter by conscious choice, by a kind of heroic defiance, like Sisyphus. I would not like to think like that; I would like to think it does matter, and in fact, I do believe it.
I imagine situations of that kind crop up during war. Do we bomb the munitions factory even though civilians are working there? Should we sacrifice a few to save more?
I recall reading that Obama was enormously conflicted over the drone programme.
But that shunts the whole thing off to the never never land of stuff that's never going to matter in the day to day.
That's my basic difficulty with 'moral realism'. I can't think of a moral-sounding assertion that is factual. '[proposition] is wrong' is an assertion of a belief that requires a context. Otherwise its truth-conditionality may be deflationary, i.e. it's only as good as the words that constitute it. And how is that factual, except to be confident that someone said it? I think it can only sort of hold up on a subjectivist view, and I don't get how subjectivism and realism get along. But then I'm not a realist, so what would I know? :)
Do not harm the methods of error correction.
Quoting shmik
If one can speak objectively of human subjectivity, then it seems to follow that there is something generic about it. One might say that the contents of awareness are always unique, such contents including a sense of self and personal preferences, yet the container is everywhere the same -awareness is the same whether it is yours or mine.
If such is the truth, it is not directly experienced, but inferred; I do not feel your pain, but your pain is as real as mine. I do not need to be told that I ought to avoid my own pain, because it is within my direct awareness, but the need to avoid your pain emerges indirectly from the understanding that we are not as separate as immediate experience suggests.
If your point of view is as real and as significant as my point of view, for all that I have no access to yours, then my obligation to you is equal to my obligation to myself. Of course it is unnatural to talk about obligation to oneself, because it is automatic - 'when hungry I eat, when thirsty I drink'. The understanding that your hunger and thirst are just as significant as mine is the foundation of obligation to another.
It is as if you are a limb that is numb to me, and I am a limb that is numb to you, and morality is the truth that if you damage a limb, you are damaging yourself, for all that you do not feel anything.
If you are looking for a set of rules to impose on others, then perhaps it is ambiguous. However, if you are looking for a moral theory with which to inform our decision making, it is not. Torturing children is wrong, no matter how perverse your trolley problem.
That's a nice way of putting it, and I agree, although I would want to go even further and say that I do experience your pain, not the identical pain you experience, but I experience your pain as my pain, by putting myself in your place. I think this 'putting myself in your place' is not a matter of mere inference; it may be deeply felt. It is true that my realization of what is considered as your private pain, is in a strict sense "inferred"; but I feel convinced it is something far deeper than characterizing it as a mere inference suggests.
This seems similar to me to our realization of an external world; which I have never been able to convince myself is a matter of mere inference; even though when strictly considered,from a "purely rational" perspective, it seems as though it must be. See, even here, here I am speaking of "our realization of an external world", as if I could ever know such a thing! And yet....
Try this for size. What one might realise at some point is the distinction between internal and external. One does not have in one's possession an internal world from which one infers the external world, one is presented with and as a world undistinguished as self/not-self, or internal/external. The tastefeel of (m)other/milk/hunger/warm/I/world is.
The philosopher is alone trapped in an internal world of thought and sensation, but this is a sophisticated malady consisting of the mistaking of thought for world. And from there arises this talk of subject and object, and the sovereignty of self, but at the same time it's denigration in favour of the object. I blame Descartes.
Separation from (m)other is a natural process of insight and maturation perverted by a 'system' of 'Education'. One does not then need inference and argument to recreate the world, because the separation is only conceptual in the first place; self does not annihilate the world.
So the philosopher looks at the properties of objects and the sovereignty of self and finds no relation - and obligation is a relation. No wonder he gets depressed and loses all meaning.
I think you've squarely hit the nail, unenlightened. I find nothing to disagree with here, and I really have nothing to add. (Y)
Racial bigotry is 'real', yet Science tells us that there is only one race, the human one. Racial bigotry is a social construction and Morals are also social constructions. If social constructions form the basis for how we behavior, then aren't they real enough?
Do you think that I am a moral agent in the same way as we are moral agents? Perhaps the "I' is derivative from the "We", where what I say, learn and how I behave mimics the roles I have learned from both global and local narratives.
It looks like we have a vastly different view of some of these issues.
What ever generic is found about human subjectivity is based on similarity not sameness. Another person has a way they go through the world, it has similarities to my way, enough similarities that we can understand each other. I can make general statements about human preferences. I don't think of consciousness is a container and definitely the difference between people is much more than the so called contents of consciousness.
It's weird for me to describe someone else pain as 'real' or as real as my own. The real aspect is the being that is in pain, the pain cannot be separated or abstracted from the being as if pain is the same between beings (just containers with the same contents).
When you speak about points of view being as significant as others, I again cannot get onto your wavelength. Significance is always significance to something, to a being, to a process, to a god. There is no abstract significance which allows us to equate each persons point of view.
With regards to 'obligation', I would see that more as compulsion (for lack of a better word). I am not immoral if I avoid food for a time even whilst hungry. It's not as if I view humans as an island either. We feel compelled to acting in various ways towards each other, we have relationships and what we view as out own obligations. My issue with realism is that this isn't enough for it. It is not limited to describing out moral compulsions, it wants to make true sentences out of them, it wants to take something quite specific to each person and simplify it, generalise it, and then insist that this is the right way to act.
There is a large gap between caring and feeling of obligation towards others and moral realism.
I don't see how you can be definite about what you are not conscious of. But of course there is much one is not conscious of that varies from person to person, habit, neurology, the state of their gut bacteria. There is much of the world one is not conscious of too. I don't think we disagree about that.
Don't get hung up about 'container'. It is just a convenient shorthand. Shall we say that to be conscious is to be the 'centre' of an 'experiential world? If that is an acceptable locution, then we can replace 'container' with 'centrality' and 'contents of consciousness' with 'experiential world'.
Quoting shmik
I'd be grateful if you could explain the gap, because I don't see it. The nearest I can get is that morality as pontificated in prescriptions and proscriptions is a poor substitute for the weakness of caring about others. Because I don't actually feel your pain, I don't tend to care about it as much as my own, but this is merely a limitation of my senses - shortsightedness. Morality simply reminds me that you are sensitive too.
Quoting shmik
Perhaps you are looking at the horizon, while I am looking at a bird, which is looking for grubs, and a cat which is looking at the bird with a view to lunch. Four very different views and significances. Each significance is a relation of a pov to a view. The horizon has no pov.
But back here in cyberspace, we are indeed talking about significance and points of view in the abstract, and it seems to have some significance to me, even if you think it is vacuous, though why you would indulge in vacuous talk is a mystery. So I assume you are saying something else; that pov's are incommensurate, incomparable.
That I entirely agree with, and it explains why the trolley problem is both intractable and somewhat offensive. Still, replace the people with logs of wood, or whatever does not have a pov, and there is no problem at all. Pull a lever or don't, chuck a log on the rails or not, and the trolley will stop somewhere and no harm done. As it is, the thought experiment requires a choice, and invites a calculus of pov's which cannot be made, and, dare I say, ought not be made. One must do something or nothing, but, I would say, it is not a moral choice at all, just as 'women and children first' is more of a social custom than a moral prescription - a way of deciding the undecidable.
Yeh if we look at people who have suffered brain damage, it seems clear that the structure of consciousness itself has changed rather than just the contents of consciousness. But yeh it's a forum, better to be brief and sacrifice accuracy than write pages just to get past the 'consciousness as container' line in the paragraph.
My point when questioning this was the idea that the 'container is the same'. If we replace container with centrality and contents with experiential world, it makes less sense to call 'the centrality the same'. Your argument was that awareness it the same whether yours or mine and that we are not as separate as we are commonly taken to be. This argument is definitely helped if the view of consciousness is as container.
Quoting unenlightened
This is likely the main area where we differ. The view of morality as 'caring and feeling of obligation towards another', is descriptive to pov. I would say that it is part of our experiential world, not compelling it from the outside or acting on it.
Take my compulsion/feeling of obligation not to shoplift a packet of papadams from the supermarket at 34 Elizabeth St, South Yarra Australia, between the hours of 6:23 and 6:25pm on Wednesday the 1st March 2017.
1. How do I make a true sentence out of that.
2. How do I generalise it to fit many different occasions
3. How do I apply it to others as something that isn't reliant on my own pov.
There are more issues/questions. So if I feel obligated to act in a specific way and someone else does not feel obligated. When I tell them 'it is wrong to shoplift', I'm trying to say more than 'I feel the obligation not to shoplift so you should not do it'. The gap I am speaking about is moving from the moral experience to a true sentence which applies to others even if they don't have a moral experience with regards to the same issue.
It's the 'is/ought' problem again. What is the warrant for 'it is wrong' beyond subjective opinion? This is what religion and social mores used to underwrite, but now they've either been 'internalised', 'relativized' or 'subjectivised'.
I think it is quite permissible to believe that stealing anything whatever is wrong. It doesn't mean you have to perform a citizens arrest over someone shoplifting, but if I noticed it I think I would tell the shopkeeper.
I was addressing this sentence.
"If your point of view is as real and as significant as my point of view, for all that I have no access to yours, then my obligation to you is equal to my obligation to myself."
If significance is always related to a pov, then there must be a pov in which these 2 other povs both share equal significance. If there is a cat looking at a bird and a bird looking at grubs - with you watching both. Then both the cat's and the birds povs can be equally significant to you. But they can't just be equally significant simpliciter.
When you stated that my point of view is just as significant as yours, it sounded like it was from the pov of the horizon (or the view from nowhere) which we agree does not exist. It could be that you meant that my pov is just a significant to me as your pov is to you, but that wouldn't really fit with your argument.
The reason that I don't see it as the classic is/ought problem is to do with the conception of what morality is. If morality is part of your experience, in your caring and feeling of obligations towards others - then the is ought problem does not apply. I take it that this is how Un conceives of morality. My concern is with the transformation of this experiential morality into true sentences as I view it as a transformation into something different, rather than a way of expressing our experiential morality.
Is ought problem has a different starting point.
Quoting unenlightened
I haven't respondent to these aspects of your post because they don't really make sense to me. I see it a way you can choose to view others, definitely not natural for me to think like this.
I would have thought that this proposition:
Quoting shmik
is exactly the is/ought problem. The 'moral experience' is the subjective sense of 'what ought to be done', but you expect a 'true sentence' to be objective in a way that the 'moral experience' cannot be, because it's subjective.
In fact what you write above:
Quoting shmik
is, again, 'subjectivism' - that is, morality is effective because it's 'part of your experience', it is under-written by individual commitment. So, you will respect that, because it represents the right of an individual to hold a view - but at the same time, you don't believe it amounts to anything 'objectively true'.
Quoting shmik
I think what you're actually asking for is an 'objective domain of values' - which is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask for - but in the context of a culture within which the traditional means of providing that, is absent.
Something like this. I think morality as commitment is also a bit of an abstraction. I don't think the morality as part of your experience is a set of rules, just the way you are compelled to act. Once we move from moral experience to moral sentences we drastically change what we are referring to.
I'm not trying to just present my own view of morality. This is in response to the argument that moral experiences (caring and feeling of obligation towards others) can be the basis of moral realism.
Quoting Wayfarer
Not really asking for it. There are plenty people that are moral realist that don't believe there is 'an objective domain of values' - sounds very platonic. I'm mostly interested in arguments for realism which don't require this 'objective domain' or something similar.
It's not really a question of is/ought. That's more a distinction between ethical significance (ought) and presence of states (is). What is at stake in shmik's argument is merely the ought. Ought the person in question shoplift? By shmik's given argument, the answer is objectively, "No." shmik' outright says it:
The person is obligated not to shoplift. shmik knows or feels this even if the other person feels otherwise. It is clearly an ought argument and "objective (true even if the other person doesn't realise it)" from its inception.
The gap shmik is talking about is between what you know and what suits other people. It's a conflict generated out of a conundrum of whether it's ethical to specify what thoughts, actions and way of life is right for other people, even if that conflicts with their experience.
How can shmik, who literally doesn't understand how shoplifting ought to happen, be the person who decrees that the shoplifter be forced into a abhorrent world (to them) where they cannot shoplift? What gives shmik the power to decree the shoplifter ought to suffer a world which doesn't fit with their principles?
For shmik, it's not a question of an is/ought conflict, but rather the way an ought destroys a way of life for someone else. shmik can't fully commit to the "objective ought" because they've realised it means someone else loses their ought, trapping such a person in an abhorrent world-- and this is defined by the binding presence of moral significance.
More like it's unbearable to think others will be harmed, caused to suffer or forced into an unbearable (to them) world by ethical significance.
It doesn't mean people don't think anyone else is wrong-- shmik clearly accuses the shoplifter of being wrong-- but makes them hesitant to proclaim governing abstractions of "moral truth."
For better and ill, it prevents abstractions of "moral turths" being mobilised against people. If the shop owner thinks like shmik, the shoplifter may walk out of the store without being harmed or restricted. To the shop owner, stealing a few products would merely be an option that ought to occur, rather than an action demanded.
No doubt a philosophy which undercuts ethics, which makes them optional (in direct contradiction with what ethics mean), but it's a decent foil for some of the excesses of ethical philosophy, where the demand is so strong that people start thinking they can force everyone to be ethically perfect.
I am very attracted to the idea of polytheism atleast in the way that Dreyfus interprets it. There are many ways to live, you can follow Aphrodites or Aries neither is more correct than the other. Monotheism represents a tyranny - only one way for all.
I don't have a problem with using force to make the world how you want it to be. Like forcibly preventing child torture. But it's the person who's the tyrant not the moral truth.
To keep with the polytheistic metaphors. People who follow different gods can war to impose their wills. You can do this without proclaiming yourself the follower of the one true God, without calling the other God a false god or a lie.
Haha I'm quite comfortable with saying you are completely wrong about this. Not sure where u pulled it from.
As if anyone on a philosophy forum is uncomfortable with others being wrong :)
What is a moral fact except something that is in accordance with or derived form a moral value?
Can anyone give me an example of a universal moral value such that the moral arguments we base upon them can be called objective fact?
We have common moral values, sometimes very common, but so far as I'm aware we do not yet have "universal" ones. For example:
"Torture is wrong" (a "moral truth" of some kind presented earlier in the thread).
What is this based on? Is it always true? I could paint a picture of a social world in which making a social agreement to abstain from ever torturing one another is mutually beneficial (by appealing to our common human desire to not be subjected to unnecessary pain), but does this statement hold true for all possible worlds?
Since I can construct a heavily weighted and plausible moral dilemma designed to force the use of torture, to which most people would begrudgingly submit, does that mean the moral fact that "torture is wrong" does not always hold true? Is it still a moral fact? Not really... While it is true for some or many situations, it is not true for all of them. That we as individuals, as groups, and as a society do not need to resort to torture, and have incentive not to, is a fact of our environment, and with it, is subject to change.
Most of us agreeing on the immorality of torture is not an existential given. It is an emergent strategy of mutual benefit and preservation based on shared shared values and shared objectives. Most of us want to live, most of us want to thrive, and most of us want to avoid torture. From these kinds of values we come up with what is basically a set of mutual behavioral restrictions (and obligations if the situation is dire) that when adhered to achieves and promotes desirable future outcomes.
The problems come when the environment and circumstances we find ourselves in change: sometimes they negate the possibility of more or mutually desirable outcomes; sometimes circumstances force us to directly contravene one desirable outcome in order to preserve an even more desirable outcome.
I do believe there is some truth-esque quality to some moral arguments, but to measure it requires accounting for variance first in shared values, and then variance in changing environments and circumstances which not only determine which strategies (morals) will effectively promote given values, but also determines which values can even be possibly achieved in the first place.
We can all get squarely and truly behind the idea of "it's immoral to torture innocent children" but we live in a world that too often - makes individuals push buttons which wind up torturing some children in the name of arresting the torture of other children- for me to accept the "Here's the supremely moral way of doing things" attribute to any moral claim. I'm always looking for the "Here's a better way for us to do things" claim because it actually makes sense in a thought out realist framework which acknowledges that moral cooperation is only possible in the degree to which our interests align (or are not opposed), and the degree to which we are physically/circumstantially capable of carrying out these cooperative strategies.
In some ways all moral facts are relativistic. They are relative to the shared values and desires of the concerned parties, and relative to constraints laid upon their possible cooperation by the circumstances and environment they are in. If one individual values freedom over security and another individual vice versa, there will be natural limitations on their possible degree of cooperation where those two values conflict. In a world where the severe reduction of "freedom" is required to maintain adequate security, "freedom" is not something that any moral system can actually offer (and survive for long...).
So the bad news is that we can only progress strategically and morally in the degree to which we agree on the fundamental objectives and outcomes of moral systems, but the good news is that we have a boat load of highly agreeable objectives, like staying alive for instance (need we even consider those who disagree?), and so really much or most of our moral arguments can be based on how we actually get down to achieving these highly agreeable ends. The great news is that we have things like logic and science which can really help us begin to sort out the hard truth of whether or not our up and coming moral strategies are actually effectual. Quite contrary to moral relativism, this broad approach of identifying common values, desires, and objectives upon which we can seat value, and realizing that constraints on what we are able to cooperate on and how well we can cooperate to achieve them stem from a changing environment, gives firm and persuasive bargaining ground on a moral frontier with clearly defined objectives and in a world where more and more actually effective cooperative strategies are becoming possible (thanks science!).
In short we can judge moral claims by how well they perform at actually achieving their stated ends, and while we haven't yet found any perfect moral claims, by building a better world and refining the moral claims we do have we might actually approach one.
There is, it's my pov.
From the pov of an astronomer, the stars are each as big and bright as the sun (approx). He does not cease to feel the warmth of the sun, or start to feel the warmth of the stars, but he understands that it is so. It's all a matter of perspective.
I've been spending several weeks reading about emotion science and emotion in philosophy for an academic project. It still seems to me that 'Othello', in the Shakespeare or Verdi versions, is a more useful guide, for instance, to the moral implications of jealousy, than the science of it (which is astoundingly primitive). Euripides' 'Medea' still profoundly disturbs my sense of the rational and emotional, and I've seen it performed three times in my lifetime, in a way that works in the rationalist enterprise fails to do.
Science will need to clarify the most basic of terms before it can be much help, and maybe the odd philosopher will contribute to that. :)
Hard science and logic are not useful as a foundation of moral basics (not unless the will to live is somehow scientific), but they are highly useful for determining what works in effectively and accurately achieving the ends laid out by a given moral foundation. For example, punitive incarceration as a tool for promoting a crime free society is an act we justify by what is in the end a shared moral foundation based on our mutual desire to be free of crime, but perhaps incarceration for rehabilitation rather than crime deterrence would be much more effective at actually reducing overall crime rates. This is where logic, science and data collection can help us to enhance and improve the moral decisions we make in pursuit of achieving the fundamental goals, intent, and purpose of making those kinds of moral decisions in the first place.
When it comes to "jealousy" and it's moral implications (I.E: why experiencing jealousy might lead to immoral actions, or, jealousy as a source of continuous conflict in human groups), they are indeed rather complex. Science can describe why jealousy exists from an evolutionary behavioral perspective, it can describe the gist of the endocrinological/hormonal neural/neurochemical structures that house the physical mechanism which produces jealousy, and it can prescribe therapy or medication to reduce jealousy in individuals. Science can explain why jealousy is beneficial or harmful in a raw macro-sense within specific environments and social circumstances because it improves/hinders chances of surviving/thriving/reproducing, and science can also explain how or why it might be a necessary part of a healthy psyche because it drives self-improvement. I'm not so sure that jealousy is always our moral enemy.
When jealousy does become our enemy however, as it was for Othello, in a sense the thrust of evidence based science and logic in pursuit of truth and fact is antithetical to that instinctive bio-mechanical part of us which would see such emotions influence our decisions in ways that are to the detriment of ourselves and our own values. I would be hard pressed to scientifically illustrate the subtle and complex social ramifications of jealousy and revenge, but as I think Shakespeare would appreciate, seeing things from an unbiased perspective really does help us to sort out which kinds of actions, behaviors, and over-indulged emotions can be potentially harmful to ourselves and those around us (especially the ones we love apparently).
It's good to try and see things from an 'unbiased' perspective, I agree. I don't, however, in my heart, accept the opposition you propose in this phrasing. There is nothing 'good' or 'right' about the world of truth and fact, though they help if we're trying to understand goodness and rightness. For me it's emotions all the way down. Only emotions stand against emotions, both of them entwined with reasoning, in moral debates, where what is 'moral' is always in question, although all of us feel there is some sort of core to it (if only we could agree what the core consists of :) ). That's how it feels to me. But maybe this just reflects a lifetime of being an arty-fart; I've only taken philosophy seriously in the last five years, so my deeper opinions are grounded in my life experience.
The justification of our most basic human desires need not be an issue so long as we can more or less agree on a few major points like our mutual desire to live and thrive free of unnecessary suffering. The meat and potatoes of our moral discussions then get to be about how best to achieve and preserve these ends through strategies of mutual cooperation and compromise.The claims of moral realists flounder in a world in which can change and provide exception to their once universal moral facts, but for those who can more or less agree on basic values, the hard facts of the ramifications of our social strategies is an area where the clarity, depth, and accuracy of science and reason allows us to make reliable improvement.
And in traffic. I once witnessed the following situation on a highway where traffic is at 110 km/h: Road workers have just driven onto the highway, stopped and began to set up the signs that traffic must slow down and the outer right lane on a two-lane road was to be closed (this is in a country where traffic takes place on the right lane). The workers were already walking on the entry lane and the outer right lane. A car came onto the road just right after the workers. The driver of that car had to decide whether to risk forcing themselves into the traffic on the left lane, or run over some workers. They chose to risk forcing themselves into the left lane. Fortunately, nobody got hurt, but many drivers blew their horns.
The question is, how does one come to hold the position of moral fictionalism if one doesn't already hold it?