Well, health is the most common thing pointed to, as a thing good by nature. For instance, de facto (which is to say, though they are too thoughtless to see what they are doing, their betters infer it for them), the defenders of Steven Pinker think the idea of Progress is vouchsafed to human beings on the basis of improvement in medical techniques alone. But, also, intelligence might be named as a natural good, maybe strength. If this is true, one might suppose nature cares for humans, and that the question, how to live, answered in the form of wisdom, which then, in weaker copy comes out in law, might be intrinsic to the world rather than at bottom arbitrary.
Marcus de BrunJuly 09, 2018 at 22:57#1953270 likes
There is an argument for morals
There is an argument for realism
Reply to InternetStranger I'm a supporter of ethical naturalism, and I'd add happiness in general, or sophisticated pleasure (distinguished from ones which cause pain, like say drug use).
Reply to Marcus de Brun The view that morals, rather than subjective opinions, social constructs or nonexistent, are objective facts in some way. Here is a rundown.
InternetStrangerJuly 09, 2018 at 23:03#1953320 likes
Boring. You simply evade an investigation by naming vacuous generalizations. It doesn't do us a protozoa of good to know someone is the support of this or that vacant rubric.
Engage the straightforward examples given above or remain silent.
"How should I engage those? I don't get what you were expecting here."
For instance, by asking, does it make sense that moral naturalism is rooted in the sense of basic goods. If so, how many are there? And howsofar can they be said to be truly good? For instance, is health truly good? What about someone who was healthy but living in a CIA prison cell, surrounded by Sesame Street music played at highest volume 24 7. And this went on for seventy three years, since the man was quite hardy. Also, the color scheme of the room was scientifically calculated to be the most revolting possible.
Marcus de BrunJuly 09, 2018 at 23:18#1953400 likes
I'm familiar with moral realism. However it falters when it encounters the devil of subjective interpretation of 'moral facts'
Standard 'western' judicial systems attempt to apply moral realism using the 'law' as the ne plus ultra. Outside of the law there is no real final arbiter of a 'moral fact' morals are subjective. If however we use the notion of 'the greatest good' and a conclusive argument for this 'greatest good' can be made and agreed upon, the truth of a 'moral fact' might be accepted. Of course all of this depends upon 'who and how' the argument is made.
M
InternetStrangerJuly 09, 2018 at 23:20#1953420 likes
Insofar as human nature is real, insofar as human well-being is real, and insofar as human suffering is real (often in gratuitous forms), then it seems inescapable that moral realism is justified.
Marcus de BrunJuly 09, 2018 at 23:24#1953470 likes
Reply to Maw
Moral realism is of course entirely justified, however it is impossible because too many people are too stupid to accept that which is moral and that which is real.
Think for a moment how the ridiculous concept of an 'interventionist God' contaminates both morality and reality.
Reply to InternetStranger Okay. I think it does, but I'm not sure how many there are. Those you and I listed however would be there. As to I would say he's not going to be in good mental health then, even if he's otherwise healthy (which is not necessarily true-these things affect the rest).
Classifying moral or aesthetic facts as "subjective" is usually just a prejudice. There's nothing spooky about morality or aesthetics, though (is mathematics spooky?). I do not think there is anything fundamentally different about descriptive and evaluative perceptions. That lighting a cat on fire is immoral is a clear and immediate perception, in the same way it is clear and immediate that there is an external world, other people exist, my thoughts exist, that two plus two is four, that certain forms of art are objectively better than other forms, etc.
It seems to me that the skeptics are the ones who need to explain why moral facts are either always false or not truth apt, because upon immediate reflection it seems precisely the opposite. Unless we have a good reason to doubt, why shouldn't moral claims be truth apt and at least sometimes true?
In practice, moral anti-realism falls flat on its face. How many moral anti-realists continue to argue for a moral position? Moral realism is implicitly assumed by anyone who wishes to seriously and sincerely discuss a moral issue.
Reply to Marcus de Brun I'm sorry, I misunderstood you then. There are of course always difficulties in getting something intellectually accepted. On the other hand, I don't think anyone fails to pursue happiness or health etc. So it could be argued they implicitly accept them, whatever else they may say.
Reply to darthbarracuda I agree, it seems like the burden lies on them, and it's a difficult onus. Some whom I've seen simply defend moral realism by rebutting attacks, thus leaving it by default.
Marcus de BrunJuly 09, 2018 at 23:37#1953540 likes
There are of course always difficulties in getting something intellectually accepted. On the other hand, I don't think anyone fails to pursue happiness or health etc. So it could be argued they implicitly accept them, whatever else they may say.
Not so: notions of happiness and health are not universals. All might pursue the concept but the concepts are entirely subjective. One needs real facts to determine moral facts.
M
InternetStrangerJuly 09, 2018 at 23:37#1953550 likes
"good mental health then, even if he's otherwise healthy"
That's good, if I may presume to congratulate you. It seems one can say Health is ambiguous, if it extends to the brain? What is health? In the older discussion, one could speak of getting one's heart desire. What is health when one hates every aspect of the society one live sin, for example? It is perhaps an evil?
On the other hand, most of the time, we do want to be healthy rather than sick. So, what follows from granting the Pinkerites that improvements in medicine deserve to be called Progress, rather than mere change? It seems, yet, a limited kind of Progress.
InternetStrangerJuly 09, 2018 at 23:39#1953560 likes
You're amazingly boring. Try following the conversation and learning.
InternetStrangerJuly 09, 2018 at 23:43#1953580 likes
Reply to mcc1789
"I don't think anyone fails to pursue happiness or health"
Yes, so far as we stick to the dictionary that is true, but when we ask what people mean by happiness we get diverse notions. Outside the circle of the mere vague idea of happiness or health, or intelligence, there is a gaping neighing openness.
Marcus de BrunJuly 09, 2018 at 23:43#1953590 likes
Moral realism is implicitly assumed by anyone who wishes to seriously and sincerely discuss a moral issue.
If this were true there would be no need to discuss moral issues. the 'implicit assumptions' would be uniform, and they are not and will never be, quite simply because some people believe in faeries and magic and 'free-will' and God and the like.
Reply to mcc1789 Any philosophical position has its default with an agnosticism. Is morality objective or not? Before anything else, there is the question and the answer has yet to be found.
The moral realist, in this debate, simply presents his evidence; evidence which is intrinsically resistant to doubt. This takes front and center stage because without this evidence, what we mean by "morality" would be fairly meaningless. The debate starts from moral perception, and revolves around whether this perception is or can ever be veridical.
Moral realism is of course entirely justified, however it is impossible because too many people are too stupid
It's not about (im)possibility. We always already find ourselves in a 'moral world' with others, and so the urgent question is: how do we act and engage with others, and how does that affect ourselves?
If this were true there would be no need to discuss moral issues. the 'implicit assumptions' would be uniform, and they are not and will never be, quite simply because some people believe in faeries and magic and 'free-will' and God and the like.
This is a non-sequitur. Why must people agree en masse for morality to be objective?
InternetStrangerJuly 09, 2018 at 23:44#1953630 likes
Reply to InternetStranger Why is it ambiguous by extending to the brain? I'm not sure what you mean with your example. Would hating every aspect of society mean that health is bad?
Of course it's limited to health. There are many kinds of progress that happen.
Reply to InternetStranger It's true there is not a uniform agreement. At the same time however, there do seem some things which can be agreed upon, for instance being in constant pain is bad.
Marcus de BrunJuly 10, 2018 at 00:03#1953770 likes
What are your thoughts, then, on moral progress? Civil rights advocacy?
I see no progress in any of these areas through the course of human history. I see only the reality that many societies have grown wealthy and can afford these nice delusions. Take away the wealth and the horror returns.
The 'moral progress' of the white westerner comes at the cost of continued slavery, in the 'third world' and the moral ugliness of humanity is lately transferred onto the other species with whom we share the earth.
'Moral progress' my arse, humanity is as ugly as he has ever been, perhaps more so when one considers what morals might be achieved at the cost of his guns.
Is the democratically elected leader of the free world a reflection of this 'moral progress'?
When the Europeans entered South America they used the Bible to spread their syphilis. White people equally love this notion of 'moral progress' to justify the ongoing plague of capital and consumption.
M
Marcus de BrunJuly 10, 2018 at 00:18#1953840 likes
The 'moral progress' of the white westerner comes at the cost of continued slavery, in the 'third world' and the moral ugliness of humanity is lately transferred onto the other species with whom we share the earth.
This has a moral seriousness to it. You degrade the moral progress of the West because it comes at a great cost, which is a moral claim.
'Moral progress' my arse, humanity is as ugly as he has ever been, perhaps more so when one considers what morals might be achieved at the cost of his guns.
...or at least, is an aesthetic claim. Not that I necessarily disagree, since I think morality is probably aesthetic.
What is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, ultimately intersects at the human being and what she ought to do. When she does her duty, she is praised for her character. When she fails to do her duty, she is condemned for being a bad person.
Ethics (or morality, philosophers use the terms interchangeably) differs from aesthetics only insofar as it prescribes behavior in accordance to an aesthetic ideal. Goodness, righteousness, these are aesthetic dimensions of the highest degree.
Marcus de BrunJuly 10, 2018 at 00:33#1953900 likes
Adult Human beings are without question the ugliest and most immoral 'things' on this planet. They represent the single greatest threat to the continued existence of life upon this planet, they have destroyed most of the other species living on this planet, and their cruelty to one another is exemplary throughout the animal kingdom. Human cruelty is so refined as to presently have a local cause and a transcontinental effect.
Unlike every other life form on this planet human beings have a word to describe themselves when they are not behaving normally, that word is 'morality'.
Moral progress? Delusional in the extreme.
M
Marcus de BrunJuly 10, 2018 at 00:43#1953930 likes
Reply to Marcus de Brun You are correct in that humans are the most murderous and destructive species on the planet.
But it is a non-sequitur to assert that because of this, moral progress cannot occur. I agree that we should not rest on our laurels. But we can and must make a distinction between the past and the present. And we have made progress, even if it doesn't justify the carnage that we have and continue to inflict on ourselves, other species and the planet at large.
Reply to Marcus de Brun That the sun will rise and set is independent of my opinion. Whether or not I happen to agree with it, this will happen nonetheless. That is simply one example.
Marcus de BrunJuly 10, 2018 at 00:56#1953990 likes
That the sun will rise and set is independent of my opinion. Whether or not I happen to agree with it, this will happen nonetheless. That is simply one example.
A guess.
One that I agree with.. but ultimately nothing more than a Guess.
Reply to Marcus de Brun A guess? If you mean it's not absolutely certain, perhaps so. Certain as anything gets though. However even if I have my guess wrong, it will or won't happen no matter what anyone thinks of the matter.
Marcus de BrunJuly 10, 2018 at 00:58#1954030 likes
But we can and must make a distinction between the past and the present. And we have made progress, even if it doesn't justify the carnage that we have and continue to inflict on ourselves, other species and the planet at large.
Would all make a nice religious eulogy.
I am not religious and must contend with the real for as long as I am here.
Reply to Marcus de Brun Well, regardless, you're still making moral claims here, and extremely passionate ones at that. Nobody ever said a moral evaluation of mankind has to paint it in a good light.
Marcus de BrunJuly 10, 2018 at 01:00#1954050 likes
InternetStrangerJuly 10, 2018 at 01:12#1954080 likes
Reply to mcc1789
"It's true there is not a uniform agreement. At the same time however, there do seem some things which can be agreed upon, for instance being in constant pain is bad."
This isn't true. It may be true for you, and it may be the current general opinion of mankind. Or, perhaps the general opinion of mankind in all ages up until now. But many disagree, and even for reasons. Also, one may disagree irrationally, i.e., without reasons, why not? Such is liberal society, it allows one to be human, to choose. Or, perhaps it is no choice, but what their psychology compels them to treat as a certainty.
One who would maintain your thesis would be compelled to deem those who choose against this, or who believe against this, defective.
One needs some preliminaries though. Does agreed mean the same as ordinary certainty? In the sense that when I see water, I say, there is water in that cup. That's a psychological certainty, a judgment based on the possibly fallible psychology of a human being. Supposing one start with that as a measure of "agreeing"? Would you grant that. Ergo, we would be setting aside questions concerning the status of human psychology in relation to the universe as such. The standard is, when something is said, a sentence, one that says something, i.e., a proposition, being affirmed, due to really being judged so, by some psychology. Would you grant this standard, or something like it of your own formulation?
Metaphysician UndercoverJuly 10, 2018 at 01:12#1954090 likes
That the sun will rise and set is independent of my opinion. Whether or not I happen to agree with it, this will happen nonetheless.
The sun does not rise, nor does it set. The earth spins on its axis and creates the appearance of a rising and setting sun. Notice that the subject here, the thing which is active, is the earth rather than the sun, so the statement you made which implies that the sun is the active subject, is clearly false.
"Really. Who likes to be in constant pain? Tell me."
Penitents, stylites, various yogies, peculiar people, Martin Luther who said: leiden leiden croix croix, Suffering Suffering the Cross the Cross! A great many people. Communists devoted to building the rational society under the claim the party truth demands perpetual and painful sacrifice. Artists who hold a struggle with society for the sake of an obscure goal is the most worthy zenith. Those who hold the tap roots of what is most great are made firm through hard exercise, i.e., through going painfully against the grain of humans as they now exist in order to change what is. Crazy people. So forth.
Reply to InternetStranger I'm pretty sure that's not constant. Let me be more specific: pain such that they can't even do anything, such as unfortunately some of the sick have without medication. You describe a pain that's chosen as well. I'm pretty sure that can lead to pleasure as well (i.e. they're masochists, or they gain pleasure through achievements).
InternetStrangerJuly 10, 2018 at 01:29#1954190 likes
However far you go, to be sure, some human would affirm it as good by the standard of their own certainty based on their psychology. One would be compelled to judge some persons insane. Which raises certain questions about the exact criteria, and the judges of insanity.
It's not wholly clear what consensus means. One speaks of "the tyranny of the majority" at some point. One must correspondingly consider the minority views. There is a question concerning what counts as consensus and on what bases one decides where the line is drawn. And from where is the hoop of those who decide described, i.e., a certain country, the whole world? The currently living human beings, there was a moment when The Marriage of Figaro was held impermissible!, utterly impossible for moral reasons!, the humans of every age up until know? Kant, for example, says, what has been held up to now is a temporary and local rumor.
I believe this roughly corresponds to the current notion of natural Right, i.e., what is held essential by the current population. With the difficulty that it is in question whether one can any longer speak only of a closed geographical locality, and not of universal humanity, since, amoung other reasons, we hear constantly about what happens in parts distant and can not help pass judgment.
Reply to mcc1789 I am a moral realist by temperament, but I think you will find - actually, you are finding - that it becomes problematical as soon as the word 'objective' is introduced. Why that is, is one of the most interesting questions in this debate.
InternetStrangerJuly 10, 2018 at 01:58#1954330 likes
The word objective is ambiguous. It can mean "bright line rules", things most people in a given society understand such as speed limits, it can also mean "independent of humans". The sciences are the current most powerful authority on what exists without humans, on knowledge. Many hold the sciences to be the authority on knowledge. Correspondingly, conviction is not scientific. The whole humanity can hold a view scientifically false. You aren't a moral realist, you simply hold yourself to be due to nascience. It happened sometimes under the former South Africa that people were certain there were two kinds of sex, illegal, between men, and licit, between man and woman. When it was explicitly raised that women have sex, and thought through, it came to be seen these people believed also that women could have sex. That was simply ignored by law and popular culture, but nonetheless, it was there as unkown known.
InternetStrangerJuly 10, 2018 at 02:01#1954340 likes
For a reason quite alien to us. Because before the French Revolution except by small groups of "Free Thinkers" the notion of mocking the ruled was thought as akin to the idea of children laughing at parents or the young making sport of the old, as the rich gorging themselves on superfluity while the poor starved, or any other common moral rule of thumb. It was thoroughly immoral by the common notion of natural morality, it was something unnatural. It should be mentioned that Mozart altered the play, as he was forbidden to adapt it, as comes out in the film Amadeus.
That's a good point; it is an interesting question. As you know I reject the very idea of there being an overarching (objective) meaning to human existence and life in general. But I also reject Hume's "is/ ought" distinction on the grounds that it fails to recognize that what is (for us humans, at least) is as much determined intersubjectively as what ought to be. It also fails to understand that life is replete with significance (which consists in relation) at every level. Animals instinctively get this and that is probably why they generally behave better towards other members of their own species than humans often do.
So, there is no objectivity in anything but principle (again, for us at least) beyond the intersubjective. There are objective empirical facts, but they are established intersubjectively, and they remain dependent on the intersubjective context for both their meaning and their truth. Given this, I don't see why we should not think there be general objective facts about human flourishing, and about what kinds of behaviour contribute to, and what kinds of behavior are detrimental too, general human flourishing. There cannot be hard and fast sets of rules, but there can be wisdom based, objective generalities that guide people who are prepared to both think and care.
Reply to InternetStranger Ah, that makes sense. I'm familiar with that idea from my history readings. However only having seen it once I don't remember the details of the play.
Reply to Janus That makes sense. I'd say your view isn't that different from an ethical naturalist in practice, even if we disagree over the metaethical status of morality.
As you know I reject the very idea of there being an overarching (objective) meaning to human existence and life in general.
That seemed like it meant you rejected objective morality too. Are they distinct for you? On your question though, yes in some sense, or rather some natural things are good objectively.
The word objective is ambiguous. It can mean "bright line rules", things most people in a given society understand such as speed limits, it can also mean "independent of humans". The sciences are the current most powerful authority on what exists without humans, on knowledge. Many hold the sciences to be the authority on knowledge. Correspondingly, conviction is not scientific.
That's the issue as I see it, in a nutshell. That's why, unlike @Janus, I think that Hume's 'is/ought' distinction is of great significance in ethics. And that is because what is objectively the case often amounts to what can be measured; and what can be measured may or may not be ethically meaningful. In practice, in liberal cultures, what is ethically meaningful then becomes solely a matter for the individual; but as existentialism well knows, this is a power that many fear to exercise.
I don't see why we should not think there be general objective facts about human flourishing, and about what kinds of behaviour contribute to, and what kinds of behavior are detrimental too, general human flourishing.
Which sounds very close to utilitarianism - the greatest good for the greatest number - expressed in the language of virtue ethics with the appeal to eudaemonia. But virtue ethics hails from Aristotle, and he most assuredly did believe in there being a real good, a summum bonum (although that expression was coined by Cicero).
The instinctive basis for a lot of people for ethics is evolutionary - that humans have evolved to be altruistic, not to harm others, to learn to co-operate, and so on. This appears, then, to provide a kind of naturalistic warrant for ethics. The problem then is the kind of ethics that are at least implicit in Darwinian theory, lend themselves to a certain kind of political and social outlook - one which just happens to dovetail rather well with liberal economics. And so 'human flourishing' turns out, in practice, to be very much like progress and economic development; which I agree are by no means bad things (as I believe in science, progress and democracy); but it still leaves a lot of questions un-answered in my view.
And that is because what is objectively the case often amounts to what can be measured; and what can be measured may or may not be ethically meaningful.
This makes no sense to me. Perhaps you mean to say that the fact that some things can be measured may or may not be ethically meaningful. If you didn't mean that then perhaps you could present an example to clarify what you did mean.
And then, what does "may or may not be ethically meaningful" mean to imply? If what you want to say is that whether or not it is ethically meaningful is arbitrary, would that not be the same as simply saying it is not ethically meaningful. Or else, what is the difference?
Which sounds very close to utilitarianism - the greatest good for the greatest number - expressed in the language of virtue ethics with the appeal to eudaemonia.
This seems confused to me. I don't see any connection between utilitarianism (which holds little appeal to me) and virtue ethics (which holds great appeal). Perhaps you could explain.
If you think the "is/ ought" distinction is a valid one, then what other grounds could you have for moral realism, for the objectivity of right and wrong, other than what is established intersubjectively?
And so 'human flourishing' turns out, in practice, to be very much like progress and economic development; which I agree are by no means bad things (as I believe in science, progress and democracy); but it still leaves a lot of questions un-answered in my view.
I don't see why, on the views I have advanced, human flourishing turns out to be "progress and economic development" at all. Those conditions might (we would need to argue for that) turn out to be the best for human flourishing, or they might not. But even if it were established that they are, in their most desirable forms, the best conditions; the questions remain: 'Whose progress and what kind of progress, and whose, and what degree of, economic development?'.
Other questions would be as to what are the human costs, in terms of physical and spiritual well-being, general happiness, peace, contentment and self-fulfilment, of progress and economic development. These sorts of important questions can only be answered, to the extent they can be answered, by empirical investigation. Perhaps these kinds of empirical questions were the ones you had in mind?
And that is because what is objectively the case often amounts to what can be measured; and what can be measured may or may not be ethically meaningful.
— Wayfarer
This makes no sense to me. Perhaps you mean to say that the fact that some things can be measured may or may not be ethically meaningful. If you didn't mean that then perhaps you could present an example to clarify what you did mean.
Well, it's fairly obvious, isn't it? It was put quite well in the post I quoted from Internet Stranger. Science generally is concerned with the domain of objective fact and measurement; it's chiefly quantitative. That's not controversial, I would hope - do you think it is?
Whereas, the domain of ethics needs to be centred on questions that are by their nature subject to value judgement, the nature of meaning, and what is the basis for values. This has been the subject of volumes of commentary - I recall a discussion in the concluding chapter of History of Western Philosophy (the first philosophy text I read) about this very point.
even if it were established that they [progress and economic development] are, in their most desirable forms, the best conditions; the questions remain: 'Whose progress and what kind of progress, and whose, and what degree of, economic development?'.
Indeed! That is what I meant by saying they leave many questions unanswered.
I don't see why we should not think there be general objective facts about human flourishing, and about what kinds of behaviour contribute to, and what kinds of behavior are detrimental too, general human flourishing.
And, whilst I agree - what is the basis for that? If it's not a utilitarian ethos - the 'greatest good for the greatest number' - and it's not based on a transcendent good, then what kind of general ethic might we be talking about?
Science generally is concerned with the domain of objective fact and measurement; it's chiefly quantitative.
Perhaps physics and chemistry, not so much geology, biology, ecology, and others of the softer natural sciences, not to mention the human sciences. Of course measurement or quantification comes into play to some degree in all the sciences, but so does qualification, creative imagination and aesthetics (in the sense of both judgement and elegance). To the extent that ethics is the gaining of knowledge about how best to live then to that extent it is a science.
If aesthetics consists in knowledge and understanding of what constitutes the beautiful and what comes into play in our judgements of beauty then it is a science too. On the other hand all of the sciences are in fact also arts; there is no hard dividing line between the two main.aspects of all human activity; creative imagination or speculation and judging and knowing. All human activities consist in attention, understanding, insight, reason, judgement, and responsibility (to loosely paraphrase Lonergan)..
It's not surprising that Russell would support a hard exclusive division between matters of fact and matters of judgement: I don't think such a strict division is warranted.
And, whilst I agree - what is the basis for that? If it's not a utilitarian ethos - the 'greatest good for the greatest number' - and it's not based on a transcendent good, then what kind of general ethic might we be talking about?
Note that consequentialist ethics relies on the notion that the greatest good for the greatest number is strictly quantifiable. I think that's strictly nonsense, the greater good cannot be used as a criterion for calculation about what must be done in specific instances, totally and inhumanly overriding any affective sentiments, deontological principles or principles of individual virtue and practical wisdom. In ethics there is no rule-based principle or method of ensuring that we get it right; what is important is good will and the right orientation in my view.
The problem is people demand either absolute proof or unimpeachable authority in these matters, rather than acknowledging that judgement is always fallible (and that includes scientific judgements, too). So in the absence of proof or the acceptance of the unimpeachable authority of dogma, some thinkers throw up their hands and declare that it must all be merely subjective, then. I think this shows the most unhelpful kind of black and white thinking. It's certainly far from enlightened thinking.
What sort of fact would a moral realist fact be? Is it like a physical fact that can be emperically measured? Is it like a mathematical or logical fact that can be derived from some formal system of axioms and rules of inference?
I think the very notion of obligation, of right and wrong, fall apart under moral realism. What, exactly, does it mean that I should do something? I can make sense of the term by referring to some rule which in turn I can make sense of by referring to some rule-giver, who for one reason or another we accept as having authority over us, but in lieu of any of that there doesn’t seem to be any sense to the term(s) at all.
To quote Anscombe:
I should judge that Hume and our present?day ethicists had done a considerable service by showing that no content could be found in the notion "morally ought"; if it were not that the latter philosophers try to find an alternative (very fishy) content and to retain the psychological force of the term. It would be most reasonable to drop it. It has no reasonable sense outside a law conception of ethics; they are not going to maintain such a conception; and you can do ethics without it, as is shown by the example of Aristotle. It would be a great improvement if, instead of "morally wrong," one always named a genus such as "untruthful," "unchaste," "unjust." We should no longer ask whether doing something was "wrong," passing directly from some description of an action to this notion; we should ask whether, e.g., it was unjust; and the answer would sometimes be clear at once.
Aleksander KvamJuly 10, 2018 at 08:27#1954800 likes
Reply to Maw how would moral realism work in society, if followed by everyone?
Marcus de BrunJuly 10, 2018 at 09:50#1955180 likes
How does this explain things happening people profoundly dislike, if it's just thought?
By virtue of the fact that we must engage with reality solely through the medium of thought. THERE IS NO OTHER MEANS.
"just thought?"
THOUGHT is everything and everything is thought. That is not to say that there are not things... there may well be, but we have only one witness to existent reality (if there is such a thing) and that witness has yet to be thoroughly cross examined.
M
Marcus de BrunJuly 10, 2018 at 10:20#1955220 likes
Moral Realism can only work in the presence of a moral authority, one that can decide between apparently intellectually valid moral proposals. In this world of human 'demi-gods' logic, reason, reality and morals are almost always privately applied and bow to the Gods of private motive and human instinct.
The 'belief' in a God, is a somewhat primitive assertion of the universal human aspiration towards Moral Realism. God is indeed quite dead but the aspiration towards Moral Realism lives, it is the ultimate but as yet illusive hope of all Moral Philosophy.
If our species survives the present self imposed ecological threat to its continued existence, Moral Realism will be its salvation.
Trump is a potent example of the present evolution of 'white' moral realism. In my estimation it will take too much time to evolve into a functional salvation, yet the aspiration remains as beautiful and as unreal as the God-concept.
M
Metaphysician UndercoverJuly 10, 2018 at 10:46#1955270 likes
The word objective is ambiguous. It can mean "bright line rules", things most people in a given society understand such as speed limits, it can also mean "independent of humans".
You forgot the meaning of "objective" which unites both of these two distinct meanings, and that is "the objective", in the sense of a goal, or aim. The objective, in the sense of a goal, is what we agree upon, to work together toward. This is what inspires us to accept the rules, the thought of working together toward objectives. And, being common to many, the objective's real existence will be independent from each of us, therefore "independent from humans".
InternetStrangerJuly 10, 2018 at 17:06#1956810 likes
OED gives: "A Traveller is not to imagine pleasure his object." 1665
It's a confused meaning, in connection to this subject matter, since what it says is someone makes the object of their senses, e.g., gold, into their object. Their thang, as it were. The thing they are about, e.g., a man greedy for pelf or gain makes money his goal. His[/i] object. This is somehow not what [i]telos or even 'final cause' in Scholastic usage means. Aquinas may have played a role in bringing this into the language. Phusei dikaion, natural justice, refers to a way of being, not a getting of something. A just man lives according to Dike or justice. He doesn't seek it as an objective.
More starkly: A courageous man is courageous, he doesn't seek the ends of courage as a goal or as his object. Courage is not his objective, but what he is according to nature.
So far as one does not trace back through the "second cave", that of historical usage, one becomes a sophist arguing about title cards and signaling fealty to slogans. The whole of the contemporary philosophic professoriate are sophistic puzzle solvers in this sense.
"Moral realist facts" are not isolable entities like empirical facts, but general facts about human nature. They are not strictly empirically verifiable by means of repetitions of controlled experiment and observation, but are phenomenologically corroborable by attentive, intelligent and reasonable intersubjective understanding of our common human condition.
I think Anscombe is just plain wrong if she thinks that Aristotle does not think that we "ought' to live virtuously because virtuous living is the way to actualization of human potential, to eudamonia.
What sort of fact would a moral realist fact be? Is it like a physical fact that can be empirically measured? Is it like a mathematical or logical fact that can be derived from some formal system of axioms and rules of inference?
[quote=David Hume]If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. [/quote]
Couldn't help notice the similarity :-)
Metaphysician UndercoverJuly 11, 2018 at 01:00#1957990 likes
Reply to Marcus de Brun That didn't answer the question. I don't think we engage with reality solely by thought. In any case, that does not tell us it's entirely thought. Your claims were to me rather extreme, such as claiming before people believed in heliocentrism, it wasn't true. I see no basis for that.
I think Anscombe is just plain wrong if she thinks that Aristotle does not think that we "ought' to live virtuously because virtuous living is the way to actualization of human potential, to eudamonia.
That sense of "ought" is akin to what we mean when we say that we ought brush our teeth to keep them healthy. That doesn't seem to be the sense of "ought" that the moral realist intends when he says that we ought not do something because it's wrong.
I think the realism comes into play when the question as to why certain acts are wrong is answered. Saying that we ought not do something simply because it is wrong is no answer at all, much less a realist one.
Perhaps moral realism should be renamed 'ethical realism' since ethics subsumes morality as well as including other practices such as cultivation of wisdom, knowledge, creativity, beauty, health, friendship, love and so on; in short all the things that constitute the good life.
Metaphysician UndercoverJuly 11, 2018 at 10:26#1958900 likes
We were talking about the meaning of the word "objective". Why do you bring up "courage" which is a disposition? You haven't shown any relationship between the two, so as far as I can see you are speaking irrelevant nonsense.
Marcus de BrunJuly 11, 2018 at 19:08#1959910 likes
Reality, both mine and yours (assuming that you exist) is entirely dependent upon thought. There is no alternative every thing and non thing is a manifesto of thought
InternetStrangerJuly 11, 2018 at 20:10#1960070 likes
Reply to Marcus de Brun You said everything is dependent on thought. I'm not seeing why that is. Sure, we do depend upon thought to discern reality. That doesn't mean that there's nothing outside it though.
Marcus de BrunJuly 12, 2018 at 07:22#1961290 likes
If you are to offer the proposal that, there is some thing that does in fact exist outside of thought, this entirely impossible 'thing' must present itself to you as a thought construct.
You cannot identify or cogitate an entity or a thing, without the application of the very thing you are trying to negate.
Insofar as human nature is real, insofar as human well-being is real, and insofar as human suffering is real (often in gratuitous forms), then it seems inescapable that moral realism is justified.
Which means what? Something like, "Whatever enhances my wellbeing and diminishes my suffering is moral (morally good, morally right, just, righteous), even if in the process of this, other people or their property get hurt or damaged" ?
Reply to Maw I need to learn to respond to people like him in the succinct way you do, instead of wasting my time on long-winded clarifications that fall on willfully deaf ears.
Insofar as human nature is real, insofar as human well-being is real, and insofar as human suffering is real (often in gratuitous forms), then it seems inescapable that moral realism is justified.
This can go at least two ways: It can be an utopian, idealistic concern for everyone, or it can be a form of narcissism. Hence a request for clarification.
I need to learn to respond to people like him in the succinct way you do, instead of wasting my time on long-winded clarifications that fall on willfully deaf ears.
Wonderful example of bad faith.
Oh, the irony: You're the one preaching concern for everyone, but you yourself don't live up to your own ideal, but instead eagerly jump to the conclusion that someone is acting in bad faith.
Hi all. What do you think of moral realism? Does it have things going for it, or not? What do you think are arguments in favor or against it?
I think that morality is fundamentally a sense that human beings developed as a consequence of evolution in a tribal context. Proto-moral behaviours are evident in chimpanzees - in that they share food and groom each other, remember who reciprocates and withhold such favours accordingly in future. This is moral transactionalism - the root of morality and trade.
Subsequent events confuse the question of the nature of morality; firstly, the occurrence of intellectual intelligence, which is to say development of the language to express moral concepts, and also hunter gatherer tribes joining together to form multi-tribal social groups.
The latter is particularly relevant because that is where morality became objectivised; that is, attributed to an absolute authority i.e. God, as a common belief system that allowed the multi tribal social group common moral laws. It must have been quite difficult to achieve. There's around a 40,000 year gap between the occurrence of intellectual intelligence and the formation of the first civilisations - a mere 12-15,000 years ago.
Civilisation was made possible by morality attributed to an objective authority - and faith in the objective authority has been required. Consequently, when for example - Hume observes the imperceptible switch between is and ought - it is for him the last resort, but for me entirely natural that the individual infers ought from is.
The individual is imbued with an innate moral sense; a sensitivity to moral implication. A list of facts is not just a list of facts upon apprehension by us. Morality is from within; and objective to us as a consequence of civilisation. All that so; I do and do not agree with moral realism. I accept society must have laws - and therefore there will be values objective to me, but do not believe they are objective features of the world independent of subjective opinion. That said, morality is objectively premised in our evolutionary biology, so it's kind of chicken and egg! From us and unto us!
The opening post asked for arguments in favor of Moral Realism and I outlined a brief schema defending the concept with universal application ("human well-being", "human suffering", i.e. shared humanity). No corollary to this outline implies an individualized perspective which partitions the individual and the other, and removes the latter from the schema, or as you ask, "Whatever enhances my wellbeing and diminishes my suffering is moral (morally good, morally right, just, righteous), even if in the process of this, other people or their property get hurt or damaged" regardless of its context, gratuitous or not. I would suggest we don't look at ethical theories based on human collectivity and immediately seek to atomize it, asking how this can benefit me, irrespective of how it impacts others.
I would suggest we don't look at ethical theories based on human collectivity and immediately seek to atomize it, asking how this can benefit me, irrespective of how it impacts others.
Human wellbeing and human suffering necessarily take place at the level of the individual, for the individual.
It is self-evident that one person's happiness can result in another person's misery. Any theory of morality needs to account for this.
It is self-evident that one person's happiness can result in another person's misery.
Besides the fact that the latter contradicts the former, the latter also typically devolves in hypothetical moral qualms which are practically useless, even more so given vast ethical problems that actually exist today. I don't see the point in individualizing ethical questions when wealth inequality soared during a global pandemic which disproportionately affected minority ethnic groups while workingclasses suffer for the benefit of Capitalists. I just don't care about hypothetical mind experiments where e.g. John would gain more wellbeing than Bobby if Johnny took Bobby's flute, but this violates property ownership so how can he do that?? Don't care.
Can one person's increase in well-being result in another person's misery? Sure, but aren't we already working within the suffering/wellbeing framework I've outline? If you want to ask, what's the right thing to do in this hypothetical then we require an actual hypothetical example, but we're nevertheless working on the assumption that there is a moral realism predicated on human suffering and wellbeing.
Insofar as human nature is real, insofar as human well-being is real, and insofar as human suffering is real (often in gratuitous forms), then it seems inescapable that moral realism is justified.
— Maw
and I requested a clarification:
This can go at least two ways: It can be an utopian, idealistic concern for everyone, or it can be a form of narcissism. Hence a request for clarification.
because your formulation doesn't exclude a position like "Whatever enhances my wellbeing and diminishes my suffering is moral (morally good, morally right, just, righteous), even if in the process of this, other people or their property get hurt or damaged".
A justification of moral realism ends up in precisely the type of scenario you're so critical about: Quoting Maw
I don't see the point in individualizing ethical questions when wealth inequality soared during a global pandemic which disproportionately affected minority ethnic groups while working classes suffer for the benefit of Capitalists.
Moral problems are experienced at the level of the individual. I'm not interested in hypothetical scenarios with individuals, but in the point that moral problems are experienced at the level of the individual, and not on some abstract level of "group" or "society".
because your formulation doesn't exclude a position like "Whatever enhances my wellbeing and diminishes my suffering is moral (morally good, morally right, just, righteous), even if in the process of this, other people or their property get hurt or damaged".
Right, so you asked for clarification and I said no, that it doesn't entail that position.
As for it going either towards utopianism or narcissism, no, it doesn't lead to either absurdly extreme positions.
Can moral problems be experienced at the individual level? Sure, but the most important and consequential ones aren't. Are moral problems experienced exclusively at the individual level? No.
Does moral realism lead to justification of Capitalist extremity? No.
Should a useful theory of morality provide guidance for individual situations? Sure, but I'm not discussing a normative moral theory that's based on moral realism, I'm justifying moral realism itself.
Comments (131)
Well, health is the most common thing pointed to, as a thing good by nature. For instance, de facto (which is to say, though they are too thoughtless to see what they are doing, their betters infer it for them), the defenders of Steven Pinker think the idea of Progress is vouchsafed to human beings on the basis of improvement in medical techniques alone. But, also, intelligence might be named as a natural good, maybe strength. If this is true, one might suppose nature cares for humans, and that the question, how to live, answered in the form of wisdom, which then, in weaker copy comes out in law, might be intrinsic to the world rather than at bottom arbitrary.
There is an argument for realism
What do you mean by 'moral realism'?
M
Boring. You simply evade an investigation by naming vacuous generalizations. It doesn't do us a protozoa of good to know someone is the support of this or that vacant rubric.
Engage the straightforward examples given above or remain silent.
How should I engage those? I don't get what you were expecting here.
"How should I engage those? I don't get what you were expecting here."
For instance, by asking, does it make sense that moral naturalism is rooted in the sense of basic goods. If so, how many are there? And howsofar can they be said to be truly good? For instance, is health truly good? What about someone who was healthy but living in a CIA prison cell, surrounded by Sesame Street music played at highest volume 24 7. And this went on for seventy three years, since the man was quite hardy. Also, the color scheme of the room was scientifically calculated to be the most revolting possible.
I'm familiar with moral realism. However it falters when it encounters the devil of subjective interpretation of 'moral facts'
Standard 'western' judicial systems attempt to apply moral realism using the 'law' as the ne plus ultra. Outside of the law there is no real final arbiter of a 'moral fact' morals are subjective. If however we use the notion of 'the greatest good' and a conclusive argument for this 'greatest good' can be made and agreed upon, the truth of a 'moral fact' might be accepted. Of course all of this depends upon 'who and how' the argument is made.
M
Boring. Blank generalizations.
Moral realism is of course entirely justified, however it is impossible because too many people are too stupid to accept that which is moral and that which is real.
Think for a moment how the ridiculous concept of an 'interventionist God' contaminates both morality and reality.
M
It seems to me that the skeptics are the ones who need to explain why moral facts are either always false or not truth apt, because upon immediate reflection it seems precisely the opposite. Unless we have a good reason to doubt, why shouldn't moral claims be truth apt and at least sometimes true?
In practice, moral anti-realism falls flat on its face. How many moral anti-realists continue to argue for a moral position? Moral realism is implicitly assumed by anyone who wishes to seriously and sincerely discuss a moral issue.
I agree, it is very damaging.
Not so: notions of happiness and health are not universals. All might pursue the concept but the concepts are entirely subjective. One needs real facts to determine moral facts.
M
"good mental health then, even if he's otherwise healthy"
That's good, if I may presume to congratulate you. It seems one can say Health is ambiguous, if it extends to the brain? What is health? In the older discussion, one could speak of getting one's heart desire. What is health when one hates every aspect of the society one live sin, for example? It is perhaps an evil?
On the other hand, most of the time, we do want to be healthy rather than sick. So, what follows from granting the Pinkerites that improvements in medicine deserve to be called Progress, rather than mere change? It seems, yet, a limited kind of Progress.
You're amazingly boring. Try following the conversation and learning.
"I don't think anyone fails to pursue happiness or health"
Yes, so far as we stick to the dictionary that is true, but when we ask what people mean by happiness we get diverse notions. Outside the circle of the mere vague idea of happiness or health, or intelligence, there is a gaping neighing openness.
If this were true there would be no need to discuss moral issues. the 'implicit assumptions' would be uniform, and they are not and will never be, quite simply because some people believe in faeries and magic and 'free-will' and God and the like.
M
The moral realist, in this debate, simply presents his evidence; evidence which is intrinsically resistant to doubt. This takes front and center stage because without this evidence, what we mean by "morality" would be fairly meaningless. The debate starts from moral perception, and revolves around whether this perception is or can ever be veridical.
It's not about (im)possibility. We always already find ourselves in a 'moral world' with others, and so the urgent question is: how do we act and engage with others, and how does that affect ourselves?
This is a non-sequitur. Why must people agree en masse for morality to be objective?
"Is morality objective or not?"
Boring. Try following the conversation.
huh?
You're rehearsing vacant general questions. Follow the conversation to learn what philosophy is.
Mods, please.
You waste all our time by not following the thread. And so retailing vapidities.
You waste my time by being a useless troll.
That's what you are being.
Because beyond the self, reality becomes objective only when people agree 'en-masse'.
If you see an elephant and no one else can see it, the objective reality of the elephant becomes increasingly less likely.
M
What are your thoughts, then, on moral progress? Civil rights advocacy?
What we see as morally correct today often was a minority view in the past and these appeals to the majority population were used to silence them.
Of course it's limited to health. There are many kinds of progress that happen.
Smokers
Alcoholics
Drug users
Chronics
Criminals
Depressives
Sucidal
All or most embrace sickness and death before health.
I'm drinking a Jameson as I type!
M
I see no progress in any of these areas through the course of human history. I see only the reality that many societies have grown wealthy and can afford these nice delusions. Take away the wealth and the horror returns.
The 'moral progress' of the white westerner comes at the cost of continued slavery, in the 'third world' and the moral ugliness of humanity is lately transferred onto the other species with whom we share the earth.
'Moral progress' my arse, humanity is as ugly as he has ever been, perhaps more so when one considers what morals might be achieved at the cost of his guns.
Is the democratically elected leader of the free world a reflection of this 'moral progress'?
When the Europeans entered South America they used the Bible to spread their syphilis. White people equally love this notion of 'moral progress' to justify the ongoing plague of capital and consumption.
M
Yes they were completely and utterly wrong.... until other people started to believe they were right.
M
Yes the earth was the center of the solar system until people believed otherwise. What would you have believed back then?
Many of the beliefs we hold dear today will equally be laughed at, as soon as people begin to think otherwise. Where is the absurdity?
M
Quite probably. However my point is certain facts exist independent of opinion. Do you disagree?
This has a moral seriousness to it. You degrade the moral progress of the West because it comes at a great cost, which is a moral claim.
Quoting Marcus de Brun
...or at least, is an aesthetic claim. Not that I necessarily disagree, since I think morality is probably aesthetic.
What is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, ultimately intersects at the human being and what she ought to do. When she does her duty, she is praised for her character. When she fails to do her duty, she is condemned for being a bad person.
Ethics (or morality, philosophers use the terms interchangeably) differs from aesthetics only insofar as it prescribes behavior in accordance to an aesthetic ideal. Goodness, righteousness, these are aesthetic dimensions of the highest degree.
No fact is independent of at least one opinion.
M
Complete bollox.
Adult Human beings are without question the ugliest and most immoral 'things' on this planet. They represent the single greatest threat to the continued existence of life upon this planet, they have destroyed most of the other species living on this planet, and their cruelty to one another is exemplary throughout the animal kingdom. Human cruelty is so refined as to presently have a local cause and a transcontinental effect.
Unlike every other life form on this planet human beings have a word to describe themselves when they are not behaving normally, that word is 'morality'.
Moral progress? Delusional in the extreme.
M
Your own.
M
But it is a non-sequitur to assert that because of this, moral progress cannot occur. I agree that we should not rest on our laurels. But we can and must make a distinction between the past and the present. And we have made progress, even if it doesn't justify the carnage that we have and continue to inflict on ourselves, other species and the planet at large.
A guess.
One that I agree with.. but ultimately nothing more than a Guess.
M
Quoting darthbarracuda
Would all make a nice religious eulogy.
I am not religious and must contend with the real for as long as I am here.
M
Nope
What will have happened, will be what everyone at the time thinks has happened. Reality is a function of thought.
M
Ouch!
"It's true there is not a uniform agreement. At the same time however, there do seem some things which can be agreed upon, for instance being in constant pain is bad."
This isn't true. It may be true for you, and it may be the current general opinion of mankind. Or, perhaps the general opinion of mankind in all ages up until now. But many disagree, and even for reasons. Also, one may disagree irrationally, i.e., without reasons, why not? Such is liberal society, it allows one to be human, to choose. Or, perhaps it is no choice, but what their psychology compels them to treat as a certainty.
One who would maintain your thesis would be compelled to deem those who choose against this, or who believe against this, defective.
One needs some preliminaries though. Does agreed mean the same as ordinary certainty? In the sense that when I see water, I say, there is water in that cup. That's a psychological certainty, a judgment based on the possibly fallible psychology of a human being. Supposing one start with that as a measure of "agreeing"? Would you grant that. Ergo, we would be setting aside questions concerning the status of human psychology in relation to the universe as such. The standard is, when something is said, a sentence, one that says something, i.e., a proposition, being affirmed, due to really being judged so, by some psychology. Would you grant this standard, or something like it of your own formulation?
The sun does not rise, nor does it set. The earth spins on its axis and creates the appearance of a rising and setting sun. Notice that the subject here, the thing which is active, is the earth rather than the sun, so the statement you made which implies that the sun is the active subject, is clearly false.
I think that seems fine so far.
So your speaking metaphorically then. What does that have to do with objectivity?
"Really. Who likes to be in constant pain? Tell me."
Penitents, stylites, various yogies, peculiar people, Martin Luther who said: leiden leiden croix croix, Suffering Suffering the Cross the Cross! A great many people. Communists devoted to building the rational society under the claim the party truth demands perpetual and painful sacrifice. Artists who hold a struggle with society for the sake of an obscure goal is the most worthy zenith. Those who hold the tap roots of what is most great are made firm through hard exercise, i.e., through going painfully against the grain of humans as they now exist in order to change what is. Crazy people. So forth.
However far you go, to be sure, some human would affirm it as good by the standard of their own certainty based on their psychology. One would be compelled to judge some persons insane. Which raises certain questions about the exact criteria, and the judges of insanity.
"a consensus"
It's not wholly clear what consensus means. One speaks of "the tyranny of the majority" at some point. One must correspondingly consider the minority views. There is a question concerning what counts as consensus and on what bases one decides where the line is drawn. And from where is the hoop of those who decide described, i.e., a certain country, the whole world? The currently living human beings, there was a moment when The Marriage of Figaro was held impermissible!, utterly impossible for moral reasons!, the humans of every age up until know? Kant, for example, says, what has been held up to now is a temporary and local rumor.
I wasn't aware of that. Why did they not like it?
I believe this roughly corresponds to the current notion of natural Right, i.e., what is held essential by the current population. With the difficulty that it is in question whether one can any longer speak only of a closed geographical locality, and not of universal humanity, since, amoung other reasons, we hear constantly about what happens in parts distant and can not help pass judgment.
You mean The Marriage of Figaro?
The word objective is ambiguous. It can mean "bright line rules", things most people in a given society understand such as speed limits, it can also mean "independent of humans". The sciences are the current most powerful authority on what exists without humans, on knowledge. Many hold the sciences to be the authority on knowledge. Correspondingly, conviction is not scientific. The whole humanity can hold a view scientifically false. You aren't a moral realist, you simply hold yourself to be due to nascience. It happened sometimes under the former South Africa that people were certain there were two kinds of sex, illegal, between men, and licit, between man and woman. When it was explicitly raised that women have sex, and thought through, it came to be seen these people believed also that women could have sex. That was simply ignored by law and popular culture, but nonetheless, it was there as unkown known.
For a reason quite alien to us. Because before the French Revolution except by small groups of "Free Thinkers" the notion of mocking the ruled was thought as akin to the idea of children laughing at parents or the young making sport of the old, as the rich gorging themselves on superfluity while the poor starved, or any other common moral rule of thumb. It was thoroughly immoral by the common notion of natural morality, it was something unnatural. It should be mentioned that Mozart altered the play, as he was forbidden to adapt it, as comes out in the film Amadeus.
That's a good point; it is an interesting question. As you know I reject the very idea of there being an overarching (objective) meaning to human existence and life in general. But I also reject Hume's "is/ ought" distinction on the grounds that it fails to recognize that what is (for us humans, at least) is as much determined intersubjectively as what ought to be. It also fails to understand that life is replete with significance (which consists in relation) at every level. Animals instinctively get this and that is probably why they generally behave better towards other members of their own species than humans often do.
So, there is no objectivity in anything but principle (again, for us at least) beyond the intersubjective. There are objective empirical facts, but they are established intersubjectively, and they remain dependent on the intersubjective context for both their meaning and their truth. Given this, I don't see why we should not think there be general objective facts about human flourishing, and about what kinds of behaviour contribute to, and what kinds of behavior are detrimental too, general human flourishing. There cannot be hard and fast sets of rules, but there can be wisdom based, objective generalities that guide people who are prepared to both think and care.
I'm not clear how we are disagreeing over the meta-ethical status of morality. Wouldn't a naturalist say that status is given by nature?
That's the issue as I see it, in a nutshell. That's why, unlike @Janus, I think that Hume's 'is/ought' distinction is of great significance in ethics. And that is because what is objectively the case often amounts to what can be measured; and what can be measured may or may not be ethically meaningful. In practice, in liberal cultures, what is ethically meaningful then becomes solely a matter for the individual; but as existentialism well knows, this is a power that many fear to exercise.
Quoting Janus
Which sounds very close to utilitarianism - the greatest good for the greatest number - expressed in the language of virtue ethics with the appeal to eudaemonia. But virtue ethics hails from Aristotle, and he most assuredly did believe in there being a real good, a summum bonum (although that expression was coined by Cicero).
The instinctive basis for a lot of people for ethics is evolutionary - that humans have evolved to be altruistic, not to harm others, to learn to co-operate, and so on. This appears, then, to provide a kind of naturalistic warrant for ethics. The problem then is the kind of ethics that are at least implicit in Darwinian theory, lend themselves to a certain kind of political and social outlook - one which just happens to dovetail rather well with liberal economics. And so 'human flourishing' turns out, in practice, to be very much like progress and economic development; which I agree are by no means bad things (as I believe in science, progress and democracy); but it still leaves a lot of questions un-answered in my view.
This makes no sense to me. Perhaps you mean to say that the fact that some things can be measured may or may not be ethically meaningful. If you didn't mean that then perhaps you could present an example to clarify what you did mean.
And then, what does "may or may not be ethically meaningful" mean to imply? If what you want to say is that whether or not it is ethically meaningful is arbitrary, would that not be the same as simply saying it is not ethically meaningful. Or else, what is the difference?
Quoting Wayfarer
This seems confused to me. I don't see any connection between utilitarianism (which holds little appeal to me) and virtue ethics (which holds great appeal). Perhaps you could explain.
If you think the "is/ ought" distinction is a valid one, then what other grounds could you have for moral realism, for the objectivity of right and wrong, other than what is established intersubjectively?
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't see why, on the views I have advanced, human flourishing turns out to be "progress and economic development" at all. Those conditions might (we would need to argue for that) turn out to be the best for human flourishing, or they might not. But even if it were established that they are, in their most desirable forms, the best conditions; the questions remain: 'Whose progress and what kind of progress, and whose, and what degree of, economic development?'.
Other questions would be as to what are the human costs, in terms of physical and spiritual well-being, general happiness, peace, contentment and self-fulfilment, of progress and economic development. These sorts of important questions can only be answered, to the extent they can be answered, by empirical investigation. Perhaps these kinds of empirical questions were the ones you had in mind?
OK, I think I see what you mean now. By "overarching" I meant transcendentally given from beyond nature; not dependent on the natural context at all.
Well, it's fairly obvious, isn't it? It was put quite well in the post I quoted from Internet Stranger. Science generally is concerned with the domain of objective fact and measurement; it's chiefly quantitative. That's not controversial, I would hope - do you think it is?
Whereas, the domain of ethics needs to be centred on questions that are by their nature subject to value judgement, the nature of meaning, and what is the basis for values. This has been the subject of volumes of commentary - I recall a discussion in the concluding chapter of History of Western Philosophy (the first philosophy text I read) about this very point.
Quoting Janus
Indeed! That is what I meant by saying they leave many questions unanswered.
But you said:
Quoting Janus
And, whilst I agree - what is the basis for that? If it's not a utilitarian ethos - the 'greatest good for the greatest number' - and it's not based on a transcendent good, then what kind of general ethic might we be talking about?
Perhaps physics and chemistry, not so much geology, biology, ecology, and others of the softer natural sciences, not to mention the human sciences. Of course measurement or quantification comes into play to some degree in all the sciences, but so does qualification, creative imagination and aesthetics (in the sense of both judgement and elegance). To the extent that ethics is the gaining of knowledge about how best to live then to that extent it is a science.
If aesthetics consists in knowledge and understanding of what constitutes the beautiful and what comes into play in our judgements of beauty then it is a science too. On the other hand all of the sciences are in fact also arts; there is no hard dividing line between the two main.aspects of all human activity; creative imagination or speculation and judging and knowing. All human activities consist in attention, understanding, insight, reason, judgement, and responsibility (to loosely paraphrase Lonergan)..
It's not surprising that Russell would support a hard exclusive division between matters of fact and matters of judgement: I don't think such a strict division is warranted.
Quoting Wayfarer
Note that consequentialist ethics relies on the notion that the greatest good for the greatest number is strictly quantifiable. I think that's strictly nonsense, the greater good cannot be used as a criterion for calculation about what must be done in specific instances, totally and inhumanly overriding any affective sentiments, deontological principles or principles of individual virtue and practical wisdom. In ethics there is no rule-based principle or method of ensuring that we get it right; what is important is good will and the right orientation in my view.
The problem is people demand either absolute proof or unimpeachable authority in these matters, rather than acknowledging that judgement is always fallible (and that includes scientific judgements, too). So in the absence of proof or the acceptance of the unimpeachable authority of dogma, some thinkers throw up their hands and declare that it must all be merely subjective, then. I think this shows the most unhelpful kind of black and white thinking. It's certainly far from enlightened thinking.
I think the very notion of obligation, of right and wrong, fall apart under moral realism. What, exactly, does it mean that I should do something? I can make sense of the term by referring to some rule which in turn I can make sense of by referring to some rule-giver, who for one reason or another we accept as having authority over us, but in lieu of any of that there doesn’t seem to be any sense to the term(s) at all.
To quote Anscombe:
By virtue of the fact that we must engage with reality solely through the medium of thought. THERE IS NO OTHER MEANS.
"just thought?"
THOUGHT is everything and everything is thought. That is not to say that there are not things... there may well be, but we have only one witness to existent reality (if there is such a thing) and that witness has yet to be thoroughly cross examined.
M
Moral Realism can only work in the presence of a moral authority, one that can decide between apparently intellectually valid moral proposals. In this world of human 'demi-gods' logic, reason, reality and morals are almost always privately applied and bow to the Gods of private motive and human instinct.
The 'belief' in a God, is a somewhat primitive assertion of the universal human aspiration towards Moral Realism. God is indeed quite dead but the aspiration towards Moral Realism lives, it is the ultimate but as yet illusive hope of all Moral Philosophy.
If our species survives the present self imposed ecological threat to its continued existence, Moral Realism will be its salvation.
Trump is a potent example of the present evolution of 'white' moral realism. In my estimation it will take too much time to evolve into a functional salvation, yet the aspiration remains as beautiful and as unreal as the God-concept.
M
You forgot the meaning of "objective" which unites both of these two distinct meanings, and that is "the objective", in the sense of a goal, or aim. The objective, in the sense of a goal, is what we agree upon, to work together toward. This is what inspires us to accept the rules, the thought of working together toward objectives. And, being common to many, the objective's real existence will be independent from each of us, therefore "independent from humans".
OED gives: "A Traveller is not to imagine pleasure his object." 1665
It's a confused meaning, in connection to this subject matter, since what it says is someone makes the object of their senses, e.g., gold, into their object. Their thang, as it were. The thing they are about, e.g., a man greedy for pelf or gain makes money his goal. His[/i] object. This is somehow not what [i]telos or even 'final cause' in Scholastic usage means. Aquinas may have played a role in bringing this into the language. Phusei dikaion, natural justice, refers to a way of being, not a getting of something. A just man lives according to Dike or justice. He doesn't seek it as an objective.
More starkly: A courageous man is courageous, he doesn't seek the ends of courage as a goal or as his object. Courage is not his objective, but what he is according to nature.
So far as one does not trace back through the "second cave", that of historical usage, one becomes a sophist arguing about title cards and signaling fealty to slogans. The whole of the contemporary philosophic professoriate are sophistic puzzle solvers in this sense.
"Moral realist facts" are not isolable entities like empirical facts, but general facts about human nature. They are not strictly empirically verifiable by means of repetitions of controlled experiment and observation, but are phenomenologically corroborable by attentive, intelligent and reasonable intersubjective understanding of our common human condition.
I think Anscombe is just plain wrong if she thinks that Aristotle does not think that we "ought' to live virtuously because virtuous living is the way to actualization of human potential, to eudamonia.
[quote=David Hume]If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. [/quote]
Couldn't help notice the similarity :-)
That's odd, my OED says "something sought or aimed at; an objective point"
Quoting InternetStranger
I disagree, I think that's exactly what telos or final cause is. Why do you think it is otherwise?
"Why do you think it is otherwise?"
For the reasons already given. You bore me unutterably. Courage is obviously not an external goal.
That sense of "ought" is akin to what we mean when we say that we ought brush our teeth to keep them healthy. That doesn't seem to be the sense of "ought" that the moral realist intends when he says that we ought not do something because it's wrong.
I think the realism comes into play when the question as to why certain acts are wrong is answered. Saying that we ought not do something simply because it is wrong is no answer at all, much less a realist one.
Perhaps moral realism should be renamed 'ethical realism' since ethics subsumes morality as well as including other practices such as cultivation of wisdom, knowledge, creativity, beauty, health, friendship, love and so on; in short all the things that constitute the good life.
We were talking about the meaning of the word "objective". Why do you bring up "courage" which is a disposition? You haven't shown any relationship between the two, so as far as I can see you are speaking irrelevant nonsense.
Reality, both mine and yours (assuming that you exist) is entirely dependent upon thought. There is no alternative every thing and non thing is a manifesto of thought
"irrelevant nonsense."
Have it your way, you bore me.
What is it you are asking?
If you are to offer the proposal that, there is some thing that does in fact exist outside of thought, this entirely impossible 'thing' must present itself to you as a thought construct.
You cannot identify or cogitate an entity or a thing, without the application of the very thing you are trying to negate.
There are no things outside of thought.
I am not "negating" anything.
There are no things outside of thought.
It is not a question, it is a statement. If you disagree then please share your counter argument?
M
Mine is not an argument it is an observation.
M
It is not my intention to convince anyone ,other than myself. In fact I have yet to thoroughly convince myself of a self. But I'm working on it.
M
Which means what? Something like, "Whatever enhances my wellbeing and diminishes my suffering is moral (morally good, morally right, just, righteous), even if in the process of this, other people or their property get hurt or damaged" ?
Then what does it mean?
Quoting Maw
*sigh*
In order to avoid starting new threads on an already existing topic, I looked up existing ones.
You said:
Quoting Maw
This can go at least two ways: It can be an utopian, idealistic concern for everyone, or it can be a form of narcissism. Hence a request for clarification.
Wonderful example of bad faith.
Oh, the irony: You're the one preaching concern for everyone, but you yourself don't live up to your own ideal, but instead eagerly jump to the conclusion that someone is acting in bad faith.
I think that morality is fundamentally a sense that human beings developed as a consequence of evolution in a tribal context. Proto-moral behaviours are evident in chimpanzees - in that they share food and groom each other, remember who reciprocates and withhold such favours accordingly in future. This is moral transactionalism - the root of morality and trade.
Subsequent events confuse the question of the nature of morality; firstly, the occurrence of intellectual intelligence, which is to say development of the language to express moral concepts, and also hunter gatherer tribes joining together to form multi-tribal social groups.
The latter is particularly relevant because that is where morality became objectivised; that is, attributed to an absolute authority i.e. God, as a common belief system that allowed the multi tribal social group common moral laws. It must have been quite difficult to achieve. There's around a 40,000 year gap between the occurrence of intellectual intelligence and the formation of the first civilisations - a mere 12-15,000 years ago.
Civilisation was made possible by morality attributed to an objective authority - and faith in the objective authority has been required. Consequently, when for example - Hume observes the imperceptible switch between is and ought - it is for him the last resort, but for me entirely natural that the individual infers ought from is.
The individual is imbued with an innate moral sense; a sensitivity to moral implication. A list of facts is not just a list of facts upon apprehension by us. Morality is from within; and objective to us as a consequence of civilisation. All that so; I do and do not agree with moral realism. I accept society must have laws - and therefore there will be values objective to me, but do not believe they are objective features of the world independent of subjective opinion. That said, morality is objectively premised in our evolutionary biology, so it's kind of chicken and egg! From us and unto us!
The opening post asked for arguments in favor of Moral Realism and I outlined a brief schema defending the concept with universal application ("human well-being", "human suffering", i.e. shared humanity). No corollary to this outline implies an individualized perspective which partitions the individual and the other, and removes the latter from the schema, or as you ask, "Whatever enhances my wellbeing and diminishes my suffering is moral (morally good, morally right, just, righteous), even if in the process of this, other people or their property get hurt or damaged" regardless of its context, gratuitous or not. I would suggest we don't look at ethical theories based on human collectivity and immediately seek to atomize it, asking how this can benefit me, irrespective of how it impacts others.
Human wellbeing and human suffering necessarily take place at the level of the individual, for the individual.
It is self-evident that one person's happiness can result in another person's misery. Any theory of morality needs to account for this.
Quoting baker
Besides the fact that the latter contradicts the former, the latter also typically devolves in hypothetical moral qualms which are practically useless, even more so given vast ethical problems that actually exist today. I don't see the point in individualizing ethical questions when wealth inequality soared during a global pandemic which disproportionately affected minority ethnic groups while working classes suffer for the benefit of Capitalists. I just don't care about hypothetical mind experiments where e.g. John would gain more wellbeing than Bobby if Johnny took Bobby's flute, but this violates property ownership so how can he do that?? Don't care.
Can one person's increase in well-being result in another person's misery? Sure, but aren't we already working within the suffering/wellbeing framework I've outline? If you want to ask, what's the right thing to do in this hypothetical then we require an actual hypothetical example, but we're nevertheless working on the assumption that there is a moral realism predicated on human suffering and wellbeing.
You said earlier:
Quoting baker
and I requested a clarification:
because your formulation doesn't exclude a position like "Whatever enhances my wellbeing and diminishes my suffering is moral (morally good, morally right, just, righteous), even if in the process of this, other people or their property get hurt or damaged".
A justification of moral realism ends up in precisely the type of scenario you're so critical about:
Quoting Maw
Moral problems are experienced at the level of the individual. I'm not interested in hypothetical scenarios with individuals, but in the point that moral problems are experienced at the level of the individual, and not on some abstract level of "group" or "society".
A useful theory of morality would offer principles for dealing with precisely such individual, personal situations.
Right, so you asked for clarification and I said no, that it doesn't entail that position.
As for it going either towards utopianism or narcissism, no, it doesn't lead to either absurdly extreme positions.
Can moral problems be experienced at the individual level? Sure, but the most important and consequential ones aren't. Are moral problems experienced exclusively at the individual level? No.
Does moral realism lead to justification of Capitalist extremity? No.
Should a useful theory of morality provide guidance for individual situations? Sure, but I'm not discussing a normative moral theory that's based on moral realism, I'm justifying moral realism itself.