Morality Versus Action
Morality seems seriously undermined if people can just override a moral claim by an action.
For example it seems pointless to call The Holocaust wrong after it has already happened and millions of people have died and are apparently beyond the scope of justice. It seems a belated moral judgement.
But in less dramatic examples I don't think we know if any action is moral. We just act. If an action is wrong what made it wrong? How can moral actions be enforced?
It is almost like force triumphs over ideology. I think some people act and they feel satisfied with their action and that makes them believe the action or their prior intuition was correct.
On the other hand even if there was a really good argument against doing an action people can still override it. This might be why religions invoke afterlife punishments or karma. I think enforceability is one problem for morality. I think even non religious people can hope for some kind of transcendent justice in the face of a seeming lack of justice in this life.
How can we actually truly know whether an action is moral or immoral.
For example it seems pointless to call The Holocaust wrong after it has already happened and millions of people have died and are apparently beyond the scope of justice. It seems a belated moral judgement.
But in less dramatic examples I don't think we know if any action is moral. We just act. If an action is wrong what made it wrong? How can moral actions be enforced?
It is almost like force triumphs over ideology. I think some people act and they feel satisfied with their action and that makes them believe the action or their prior intuition was correct.
On the other hand even if there was a really good argument against doing an action people can still override it. This might be why religions invoke afterlife punishments or karma. I think enforceability is one problem for morality. I think even non religious people can hope for some kind of transcendent justice in the face of a seeming lack of justice in this life.
How can we actually truly know whether an action is moral or immoral.
Comments (86)
Indeed, and sometimes that is a good thing ---if, for instance, human beings are understood as property or if homosexuality is considered evil. We don't want some people to have the power to force us to live according to their version of what is moral or right. I suppose the basic idea of freedom is that on matters that are questionable the individual decides. This is a gift and a burden. Part of us just wants to be told what to do to avoid wrestling constantly with our unstable understanding of right and wrong. 'Give us, say, ten laws that are absolute. And let's make it a rule that those are the only rules. And let's make it a rule that those rules never change.' One problem with some short list of rules is that they will not at all be complex enough for high-tech life. In life as we know it, we have experts spend years in law school only to specialize in one little aspect of just the written rules, nevermind the unwritten rules that cannot be formalized and yet are perhaps the most decisive. And of course the way we live is always changing, so that even a great set of rules can become inappropriate for the beings we become as we start to use new tools.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
This realization goes back at least to the Greeks. On the other hand, individuals aren't that powerful away from groups. Any force sufficient to triumph on a large scale is therefore to be expected from a group. Such groups depend on some kind of morality within the group, even if those outside the group are not recognized as deserving consideration. This suggests a complicated relationship between force and ideology. We might say that one ideology triumphs over another through ideologically-organized force, but an ideology can often take over without force or even the threat of force, by means of what we might call seduction. If I tell you a new story about your place in the world and what is right and wrong than the one you already have, then you may well adopt this story as your own. While logic is going to be part of that, I personally think it's naive to understand this seduction only in terms of logic. Thinking is motivated. We usually know what we want to 'prove' ahead of time. Then we creatively reach for arguments and potent metaphors. And if the conclusion appeals to us, we may be a little lazy about sniffing out fallacies.
Of course that's just one way of looking at it.
And then you're wondering how we can enforce morality. Wouldn't laws work? We think it's immoral to kill someone premeditatively, where the killer initiated the action, so we make that illegal, and then we can arrest and incarcerate the perpetrator. That's enforcement, isn't it?
Indeed, and this happens fairly often. When people override moral claims we call it "antisocial", "wicked", "illegal", "criminal" or some such term.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
If one is not going to raise objections or interfere before or during a horrific crime, then it is at least not very useful to declare the criminal act immoral. As it happens, crimes like the Holocaust had occurred before 1938. There was the Turkish genocide of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915-1917. The Turks have not accepted guilt for what they did. There was the slower American displacement of American Indians over hundreds of years which amounted to genocide. We haven't accepted guilt for that, either. Then there was slavery, which amounts to another variety of genocide. Later there was the Cambodian and Rwandan genocide. Once the crime is over and the victors have taken charge...
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I suppose if someone was raised by wolves they would grow up not knowing anything about morality. People, however, grow up being taught some kind of morality by other humans. How do we know what is moral?
The process of being nurtured through infancy, growing through childhood, becoming a responsible adult, requires that we learn how to cooperate with others, request and give assistance when needed, share, and so on. When we violate the accepted norms of nurture, cooperation, helping others, sharing, playing together, and so on we get aversive feedback (punishment). At a minimum, morality is created through these experiences. Most people are also explicitly taught lessons on what is right and wrong.
Human beings all require this kind of basic morality to be in place in order to function collectively.
That is how we know what is right or wrong. We create principles which we expect ourselves to follow.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Yes, that's called self-justification. People who engage in wrong-doing, especially when they engage in it as part of a larger collective action, quite often feel very self-justified.
The fact is, people who know perfectly well what is morally right and morally wrong are perfectly capable of doing forbidden acts and feeling OK about themselves. This phenomenon is pretty common. Most of us do this occasionally, but we don't make a habit of it. But sometimes it is essential. I was taught that homosexuality was very wrong. None the less, I liked gay sex, and did it as often as possible. Once I moved out into the larger world and discovered a community of gay men, I was able to redefine gay sex as an inherently good thing and stopped feeling guilty about it.
I, like most Americans my age, was taught that communism and socialism were very, very wrong. Again, once I discovered a community of people who were socialists, I was able to change my thinking.
Morality changes, but moral guidance continues.
But you have not attained moral truth.
There is a difference between knowing what a moral action is and having an intuition. I am not convinced intuition is knowledge.
I think we could make a moral analysis of any action but we are selective about which actions or beliefs we target.
It is, for example, fairly easy to know that beating someone causes harm and might be wrong based on some principle that causing suffering is wrong or simply harmful. Taking the homosexuality example, it was hard for me to accept homosexuality was wrong because of the lack of harm it caused and seeing no rational argument against it.
But beyond things that are either clearly harmful or seemingly benign then we have the complicated territory of looking it no ethical subtleties such as the future impact of current behavior, the appropriate action to minimize harm, meta ethics, the scope of ethical concern and so on.
So for example what should I do for charity? How much should I give? How ethical is my lifestyle? Who should I vote for? Should I eat meat? This can even make morality seem like a burden.
It is possible to enforce some moral claims although I think breaking the law is not an issue of morality. I don't think that when the courts convict someone of an offense that proves its immorality. But I agree that some crimes are dealt with adequately and an element of morality is enforced.
The problem is like with genocide or unsolved murders when someone gets away with an offense. That is where you may have the benefit of an afterlife enforcement of justice or karma.
The other problem and the one that inspired this thread is when a moral argument is "resolved" by action. I was reading about two families with 6 children and wondering why they felt it a good idea to have lots of children and why they felt entitled. They were talking about the joys of large families.
It is not illegal to have lots of children and when people feel self satisfied they feel vindicated and if you disagree with them you have lost the argument anyway because they have acted.
The only thing that might happen is that society might eventually disapprove of large families and history condemn this and it's contribution to overpopulation and environmental damage.
My judgement here might be wrong but how would I know?
I think society can have moral standards that are enforced by the police and justice system.
What concerns me is when people ignore morality and resolve a moral dispute by acting. This where people have a moral disagreement and only force resolves the dispute being moral argumentation failed.
A counter example might be a danger sign "Do not touch, live wire" If someone disobeys this command they might be electrocuted.
In some cases you can illustrate the harm caused by an action or watch a harm unfold but there are a lot of ambiguous cases where harm and responsibility is disputed.
In my own case it was being forced to go to church several days a week throughout my entire childhood where my parents will dispute that it was harmful or wrong.
And it seems proving something is harmful still does not resolve a moral dispute when some forms of harm are deemed acceptable.
The problem then with the power of the group or the power of the majority is that it appears to trump reason. What ever rational arguments lie behind a position if becomes imposed by brute force.
I feel that action should be guided by reason mainly and a constant process of reason and reevaluation. I think people become complacent with norms.
Homosexuality is a good example here because even at the height of the persecution and criminilization of homosexuality people still had gay relationships and sex.
Obviously it is good if you can override unjust laws but less good when you can just ignore any moral claim.
I am personally not looking for the Ten Commandments or any kind of shallow basic moral dogma but rather for the ability to justify my moral sentiments and enact them confidently.
I feel quite frustrated at many peoples complacency about morality where they either blindly accept moral dogmas or don't care about moral problems and have a kind of apathy or unjustified confidence.
In my view, your issues are caused by having a false picture of what morality even is. Morality is individual dispositions towards what (interpersonal) behavior is acceptable versus not acceptable, recommendable versus not recommendable, obligatory versus forbidden, etc.
You can't "prove" that something is moral or immoral because the idea of that doesn't even make sense. Something is always moral or immoral to someone, and different individuals have different dispositions about just what behavior is and isn't kosher, and that's always going to be the case.
I think it does.
If someone has a car there is a right way to drive a car.
There could be a right way for a human to behave just like their is a proper functioning of a heart. The thing said to undermine this is evolution and the idea that there is no longer teleology in nature.
I am a moral nihilist at the moment. I think inventing moral ideas for personal gain is the reverse of morality.
I think it is a poor quality existence if it is just a constant struggle for the supremacy of ones values.
I wouldn't say there are facts about right way to drive a car, the right way for a human to behave or the proper functioning of a heart.
There are only facts about what particular individuals consider the right way to drive a car, the right way for a human to behave or the proper functioning of a heart.
Morality, factually, is simply ways that people feel about interpersonal behavior.
A car and a heart have a function that can be proven when they stop functioning. I don't think biological functions are mind dependent at all.
The body functions successfully and performs vital tasks to keep a live.
There is a limit to how much the mind can control the body and your cells will continue to function whether you like it or not.
In this sense you can give people health advice based on the likely outcome of a behavior. There are physical consequences. If a person is stabbed in the heart or drives a car the wrong way down a road. However when it comes to the consequence for immoral behavior they usually have to be applied by other humans such as fines and imprisonment.
I don't agree with your characterization of morality. I think you can give different definitions of what morality is or does.
The thing is that they can't function a wrong way. They're always going to simply be in some state or other even if the state is simply that they're in relative stasis except for decaying. One state that they're in is not objectively preferable to any other state they're in or can be in. That's only limited by physical possibility. They can't be in a state that it's physically impossible for them to be in. Any state that's physically possible is just as good as any other state objectively. People have preferences about one state or another, but that's all that is. It's not a fact that one state is preferable. Just a fact that an individual prefers one state to another.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
It's not objectively preferable to be alive rather than dead. Again, it's just that some individuals--most of them, in this case--prefer one state to another.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
That's fine, but what it factually is doesn't hinge on your agreement.
“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
This appears to be your end to any further discussion, at least with the person known as Terrapin Station.
He is not 'characterizing' morality, but rather attempting to operationally 'define' it so that the two of you can have a more objective and cohesive interaction. Your simply rejecting his attempts to find common ground don't bode well for your enlightenment.
Morality is a set of rules reached by general consensus as a framework for two or more people to begin to trust and to respect each other, and to cooperate for their mutual benefit. When and where two disagree in that respect, there must be a detent or war. If it is your position that you may encourage my minor child to have sex with you, providing she agrees, and I am of the opposite opinion regardless of her agreement, where does that leave me in my determination that you shall not prevail? What type of 'society' could you and I build where you may have your way and where I must agree to it, or not?
It seems futile to call a behavior immoral or moral if no consequences come from that.
It is not a case of whether a state is preferable but whether it is performing a function. You might want to commit suicide but that does not mean you body is not being kept alive by generally automatic functions. To kill yourself you need to end this function.
The point however is that you can describe how something functions ideally at a certain task such as comparing a weak heart to a healthy heart. This means if you want something to function optimally in that situation there is an optimal function to be achieved. But in terms of an individual humans whole life I don't see there as being a function for it like this (paradoxically) our body can be very healthy with no physical illness but we can have no purpose or telos.
I don't see why the way someone feels about a certain behavior equals a morality. I don't consider all my responses to behavior of myself or others as moral responses. I can differentiate between harmful events that have no moral or volitional component (illness/weather events) and harmful behavior caused by ill will. I think you can justify giving a moral response to certain actions.
My idea of morality is looking for the proper actions to perform for myself and for society to be moral through its actions. I don't want people to be good just so I have nice thoughts about them.
I don't think humans are just like weather events and I don't think you can just describe humans like machines because using language humans express ill intentions, justifications and values that guide action. At the very least I think you can distinguish between harmful and benign behavior and malicious or benign attitudes.
Everthing physically possible is a function.
"How something functions ideally" is about individuals' preferences. There is no objective "ideal," no factual "ideal," beyond what people prefer.
You can think about human inventions here specifically. Can you not tell the difference between when your computer of phone is functioning or malfunctioning?
In the case of human artifacts they are designed with a specific function in mind with a design that is meant to optimize that function (or even allow for new functions or flexible functions).
Another example is games. To play the game Monopoly you have to follow the rules in order to play the game otherwise if you make up your own rules that will not be Monopoly. You can define something with a coherent set of rules.
The alternative is you don't assign any definitions or concepts etc at all and I think that is impossible. I think we have to perceive functions, concepts and dispositions in order to negotiate life.
Sometimes somethings properties decide how we can treat it for example we can't swim in ice. You can't just arbitrarily attribute functions or dispositions to things in defiance of some fixed attributes. In my opinion.
Because that's factually all that's going on when we "do morality." You observe the phenomenon, and then you take a look at what's going on ontologically with respect to that phenomenon. (This is not necessarily the same as what people believe is going on. People can have mistaken beliefs.)
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Ah--you're reading my comment as if it was intended to be an exhaustive, detailed definition. It wasn't. It's a comment in the vein of "C++ is a programming language"--that's not meant to suggest that all programming languages are C++. Just that C++ isn't something other than a programming language.
Certainly I can. But how? Well, based on how I think about that, what my preferences are, etc.
What about the fact that there are objectively different states something can be in. A malfunctioning computer is no in the same states as a functioning one.
For a moral judgement you want to differentiate between actions in some important respect to illustrate say, why charity and rape are not equivalent. One simple difference could be the harm caused. But I think moral needs something more rather than just stating that something is harmful or not to your preference.
Right. There are objectively different states that it's in,. Counting state A rather than different state B as "malfunctioning" hinges on how I think about it--namely, the preferences I have, what state I want it to be in, etc. Outside of an individual thinking about it that way, no particular state is "malfunctioning" versus anything else. It's just different states, no preference attached to them, no value judgments about them, etc. We're the things that have preferences, that make judgments, not the world outside of us.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
It's that you have a preference that people don't behave towards each other so that they harm them (which is really another preferential consideration--you count x as harm and you have a preference that people don't behave towards others to put them in state x).
I don't think the fact we have a preference and or intuition about certain behavior means that is all that is going on.
On the conscience view these preferences are created so we can differentiate between good and bad behaviors. This is like the argument concerning pain where pain indicates what is harmful for us.Pain can really be a good signal for avoiding harm.
So if someone is upset when they see violence I don't think that is simply a preference but an appropriate response to harmful behavior. henceforth I don't think responses are arbitrary or shallow.
I think moral responses lead us to want to change behavior and action in a moral way and also I think they have a mental component of judgement not simple negative or positive sensation. So for example pain caused by standing on glass does not lead me to a moral judgement but pain caused by being slapped does.
I don't either. Rather it's the complete lack of evidence of any other relevant phenomena that means that the preferences are all that's going on.
Right. For one, because morality is judgments about interpersonal behavior, and that's not interpersonal behavior. That's not an exhaustive definition, just part of it.
I don't see how you can resolve a moral dispute by preferences because then that ends up as morality by brute force or survival of the fittest.
I agree that morality does definitely seem simply like preferences and that is what I want to transcend. The problem of transcending a preference argument is proving that there is some other basis to a moral judgement.
Is it not based then on preexisting moral ideas.
Sorry, were you the person I was talking to about the hammer?
I think you are right in noticing preference is often soley present, but I think there are also instances where there is objective utility as well. A ball is objectively good at rolling, as opposed to a box. Whether a preference for rolling exists or not, whether a mind is there to categorise/notice or not, the ball still rolls and the box does not.
It doesnt seem like your view here is accepting there are exceptions to your observation about the presence of preference.
The problem is that the only way a society is validated is by simply existing and not by passing some kind of moral test. If someone tries to change a society to suit his or her notion of good they are attempting to use persuasion or force to make another set of behaviors more prevalent.
I think moral nihilism can lead to caution in making moral assertions and would require actions to have stronger justifications. If justification for an action turns out to be simply preference that would undermine moral claims.
Let me just clarify, first, what an example would be in your view of resolving a moral dispute? I can propose examples, but I want to make sure that we're addressing the sort of thing you have in mind.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I'm not sure what you have in mind there, either.
What I was getting at is that we're naming a limited set of things "morality," and one of the criteria for limiting the set there is that we're talking about interpersonal behavior. Another criterion is that we're talking about interpersonal behavior that people consider more significant than just etiquette.
Even assuming that would be the case, and not exploring what's going on further, that would simply tell us that moral preferences are changeable, but some other sorts of preferences are not.
The way you change someone's moral ideas by argument is that you get to the root preferences as well as the person is aware of their root preferences, then you show that some consequent judgments they're making are not consistent with what their root preferences supposedly are.
The way that would work with food with be analogous to this:
Joe loves chicken, mushrooms and red wine, say
You suggest taking Joe to a French restaurant. You want him to try the coq au vin.
Joe says, "Ew, no! I'm not going to like that. I don't like French food!"
You say, "But coq au vin is just chicken and mushrooms cooked in red wine--you love all of those!"
That doesn't imply that whether Joe likes (or rather winds up liking) coq au vin is not a preference that he has. It's just that if he dislikes coq au vin it seems inconsistent with his root likes--chicken, mushrooms, red wine. Maybe Joe will wind up liking coq au vin after all. But if he doesn't, then we (and Joe perhaps) simply have to refine our knowledge of Joe's preferences.
Yes re the hammer.
A ball isn't objectively "good" at rolling. It has certain objective properties when it's rolling, and certain objective properties when it's in a box. A hammer s certain objective properties when it's tumbling down an incline, too, and certain objective properties when it's in a box. None of those are objectively good or bad. They just objectively ARE whatever they are.
Quoting DingoJones
Yes. What's not the case is that any of those properties are objectively good or bad.
The way you have changed someones moral preferences is by giving a moral argument. Whether there preference changes is based on the success of the argument.
On the other hand if someone dislikes pork and you cook it in a delicious sauce you could disguise the fact it was pork and make them appreciate it that way. But I don't think moral arguments aim to change peoples preferences by subterfuge. (an emotive argument might however)
So I don't moral arguments are simply an attempt to change peoples preferences but rather to invoke reason
I would ideally like to be able to show someone that their behaviors or beliefs were wrong. I would want to persuade them based on reason.
I am currently a moral nihilist because I think it is not possible to prove a behavior or attitude is wrong.
But where are we getting the initial concept of morality from?
A moral sense seems to entail someone believes something is objectively wrong even if this turns out to be a preference or mistake.
I am not sure to what extent we can disentangle ourselves from our upbringing and cultural influences but still we do have some strong moral intuitions.
I think by doing moral philosophy we might lose our intuitions. If morality turns out to be simply a product of culture that is very worrying leading to arbitrary fluctuating principles.
Force comes into it because obviously, without the use of force, no morality can exist; with no might you cannot make anything right, and so moral decisions can only be made by those using force. Just that some act in favour of their own pleasure-pain axis and against those of others.
I see, using “good” differently. I had in mind something like “well suited”. Eventually we can discuss the morality issue, I was intending to make this point first and should have chosen my words more carefully.
That is, unless you are no more satisfied with “well suited” than with morally good....?
All morality depends on action.
For morality to mean anything, force has to be used. Otherwise it is just a plea for the T-rex not to eat you. If you or a third party cannot bring force to bear against the T-rex to get it to relent, then morality is just a whimper for mercy.
And even any moral system that denounces "force" or "violence", it would have to arbitrate its claims using violent force.
Say that you have two ball-like objects.
One is so round, so smooth, with so little friction, that we can just tap it lightly and it will roll for a mile.
The other is so bumpy, with so much friction, that it takes a tremendous amount of effort to roll at all. It will roll, but it takes a lot of force to barely get one revolution out of it.
Which one is more "well-suited" to roll?
Morality can mean and probably usually means not acting.
Not stealing, not lying not causing harm. The problem is convincing other people not to do these actions as well.
Positive moral actions probably means altruism and charity. But one might also be concerned with ones own attitudes and beliefs such as trying not hold prejudice beliefs.
However this all seems problematic if there are no moral truths to pursue.
So the problem then is what is the point of calling behavior immoral if it has already happened?I think moral judgement are used to judge the past and influence future action. In this sense it is abstract.
The problem is we can judge some pain as good and some pleasure as bad.
We can judge painful life saving surgery as good and we can see the pleasure from drugs and alcohol or over eating as bad. Or we can simply not judge pain or pleasure morally.
i think virtue ethics focuses on character and the motivation of the person acting.
On the other hand deontology see morality as obedience and following laws.
Personally I think minimizing suffering is very desirable regardless of moral convictions. I can't see the benefit of excess suffering. I don't think minimizing suffering is moral as opposed to pragmatic or a strong almost inevitable preference
The one that has the most traits that are well suited to rolling. In your example it sounds like the smooth, mile rolling one. These traits are mind independent. They exist and are condusive to rolling regardless of why the ball is rolled, or what any mind thinks of as good rolling traits. Maybe the person rolling the ball is an idiot, and thinks that the bumpy one is the better roller. It doesnt matter what he thinks.
Same with the hammer and the dead fish. Regardless of any subjective opinion or belief or any other subjective thing the hammer will hammer the nail better than the dead fish. Even if you take two hammers and its impossible to tell which is better suited at hammering, it would only strengthen my claim. There is a fact of the matter about which hammer is better, or ball, or hammer to dead fish or whatever else...traits suited for things are that way whether humans know, or care or whatever subjective phenomenon you have in mind. Thats objective as you are using it here, is it not? Its worth repeating that I dont think we are dealing with mutually exclusive concepts here, it seems to me that there is overlap. Figuring out where the boundries are require me to convince you of this bit of mind independence first. Did it work? Do you think that the traits themselves that things possess are mind independent? If so, then the interactions between or of these mind independent things can likewise be mind independent, even though they wont always be so such as in the case of a person making a mistake about whether or not a trait of an object is in fact mind independent.
Okay, so the next question is, why is rolling via less force, further, with less friction, more distance etc. "more well-suited to rolling"? You're claiming that's objectively the case. What makes rolling via less force, etc. the "well-suited" rolling versus rolling via more force, less distance, etc.?
I edited that last post a bit fyi.
Well this is the overlap. I think it is precisely where a human being would make a mistake un assigning an objective trait, by inserting some human end like knocking down pins on a bowling lane. One could just as easily invent a game where bumpy ball is better suited, strengthening your own point. The traits valued are subjective.
However, “rolling” is something that happens objectively, and however you define the term “rolling” there are going to be traits better suited to it and traits not as well suited.
Hence me asking why is rolling via less force, further, with less friction, more distance etc. "more well-suited to rolling" versus rolling via more force, less distance, etc.? What's the answer to that?
I was hoping it would be obvious from my last comment that your question is ignoring an important distinction.
Lets do it your way though. I will happily answer your question but I need to know what you mean by “rolling”. Whatever your answer is, there will be a scale of well suited to less well suited traits. Something that cannot roll for example, cannot sensibly be said to be well suited to rolling.
The standard dictionary definition will do: "moving by turning over and over on an axis."
So what's the answer to the question I asked you?
Ok, well your definition of rolling doesnt include anything about force or further or friction etc etc, so it seems like a poorly worded question now that you have provided how you want to mean “rolling”. As I explained (tried ), my answer will simply be an accounting of what the best traits are for what “rolling” means. I suspect you will not find that satisfactory, but Im not trying to dodge here. I feel like ive provided an argument that makes your question irrelevant.
Come on, now. You said you'd answer if I gave a definition of "rolling." I did that. The definition of "rolling" doesn't actually matter for the question, but I gave one because you asked. I'm fine with you suggesting a different definition.
Re "my answer will simply be an accounting of what the best traits are for what 'rolling' means," so how about actually giving an answer rather than only teasing what your answer would be like?
You miss the point Im afriad. It doesnt matter how rolling is defined, thats why I asked you fir yours, to show that my argument doesnt require a specific definition. You arent engaging with much of what im saying, do you intend to at some point?
Anyway, You are right I had said I would do it your way.
My answer: rolling via less force, further, with less friction, more distance etc are NOT better suited traits for rolling becuase none of those things are encompassed in the definition of rolling.
Now what?
Sure, so in the scenario I presented, neither option is objectively better suited for rolling in your opinion?
No, none of those traits (thats what you meant by “option”?) are traits that are strictly “rolling”
Traits, and thats not my opinion its yours. (Your definition of rolling excluded them).
In your hammer and fish example, is one thing objectively more well-suited to hammering nails? If so, what definition of "hammering" does that depend on?
Lol, ball analogy not working out? The principals are the same, switching to hammers or other examples won’t change that.
Your turn, have you any responses to my actual arguements above? I don’t know that we necessarily disagree on much, but as far as I can tell my points above stand.
But you just said that neither ball is more objectively well-suited to rolling. So if the principles are the same . . . ? The goal here isn't to score points, it's to explain something to you.
My argument is that if there were functions then you could base morality on that.
Computers can be repaired because they have been designed to perform certain tasks and bodies can be healed and restored to a previous functionality.
The problem then is how can human behavior be described as immoral or dysfunctional with no purpose or telos? If nature allows an action that seems to be the only arbiter of what is acceptable.
I understand that, Im not trying to keep score, my laughter was meant to be light-hearted not rude.
What I said was that none of the traits are “rolling” traits, according to your own definition. They might be bowling traits, or giant boulder trap traits but as I said I agree that these are not mind independent. They require a subject with a goal for the rolling ball. To get a strike or kill Indiana Jones. Absent of these mind dependent traits, there is still a matter of fact of how well suited a ball is or is not to “moving by turning over and over on an axis”.
What is it that you think you are explaining to me? I feel like I understand what you are saying. We can leave it there or you can tell me why my argument is incorrect but focusing on the semantics of our various examples isnt doing that.
Okay, and that matter of fact hinges on?
This is "will lead to feeling good/will lead to feeling bad".
Well if you can't convince them, force has to be used.
I prefer engagement, otherwise I could just be reading so Im gonna pass.
IMV you might be making morality too theoretical. A good example of this taken to extremes is Randian objectivism. Hume's is probably a better approach. Roughly we praise what is good for the community, and this seems to be based largely on an intuitive sense of what is good. Can one justify trying to survive in the first place with pure reason?
I venture to say (especially as a cat lover) that no argument will persuade me that torturing cats is good or OK. The badness of such cruelty is perhaps no less obvious to me than the sight of my shoes on the floor. No matter how perfect the argument, I would doubt argument itself first before being persuaded. Moral intuitions even make civil discourse and argument possible in the first place, IMO. Does one have to reason carefully before deciding not to punch someone in the nose upon first meeting them? IMV you are thinking of reason in an insufficiently complex way, as a sort of calculator. Reasoning is something we do in a living social context made possible by things that reason cannot even grasp with exact concepts perhaps.
I consider back and forths, where we might ask and answer questions in a focused manner (so relatively short, one point at a time, as if we were having a conversation in person), to be the paradigm case, the ideal, of engagement.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
This is much less detailed than what I explained above. Are you disagreeing with what I explained above, or?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Ah, so when you said:
Quoting Andrew4Handel
It wasn't because you think you can solve moral disputes via some other means. It's that you don't think that we can solve moral disputes period?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
It's a way that our brains work. Our brains automatically work in a manner where we feel that some interpersonal behavior is acceptable (where we're talking about something we feel is more significant than mere etiquette, etc.) and other interpersonal behavior is not.
Why do our brains work that way? Because there were evolutionary advantages to it, especially among creatures that required cooperation to survive long enough to reproduce.
The word "good" originates from the word God. So it does not directly refer to pleasure or pain. The word moral comes from the Latin for character.
My point is that pain and pleasure are not a good indicator of what is good or bad. Even if the end goal is to attain pleasure their is no reason this is good if what is causing the pleasure is not good. The issue is the quality of the things or circumstance causing pleasure or pain.
If you do a pain-pleasure calculation for life or reality this is like utilitarianism and can lead to a rejection of life as overwhelmingly immoral, something I favor at the moment.
However I do think assessing causing pain is a good way of deciding whether something is immoral the problem then is enforcing the prevention of pain and proving to others that they are inflicting unnecessary pain.
But all moral claims can be ignored and overridden by action. I think the best we can hope for is karma and that peoples "bad" actions will create their own punishment or disincentive etc.
I think solving moral disputes is hard for various reason. Firstly there do not appear to be any moral facts. Secondly people can act against moral claims.
That is why I think teleology/function/purpose would have been a good basis for morality. A Doctor can warn you about what will objectively cause damage to your health. But there appears to be no purpose or natural rules that humans can transgress.
I suppose we can just persevere and try and force our moral claims to top position through various means including reason.
But it seems that if there is a moral good it is something that should be enforced or pursued as soon as possible.
I think it seems that way, too, but what I'm saying by that is that there are things that I feel (sometimes very strongly) about interpersonal behavior being acceptable or not, recommendable or not, etc.
Re the doctor comment, by the way, the doctor can't tell you whether anything has an objectively positive or negative value. He can tell you what will likely obtain given different situations, but it's up to individual humans to determine whether they want one thing versus another to obtain.
You seem like a moral nihilist not convinced of the strength of your moral intuitions.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Function and value are not the same thing. However I find it implausible that someone would want to be unhealthy. If someone wants to be healthy then a doctor can advise them.
If you have certain goals and preferences there are ideal ways to achieve them sometimes.
I am not sure what your stance is and whether you want any moral system at all or if you want a purely subjective moral system based on individual feelings and subject to whim.
People can define morality how they feel.
Possibly.
I would say that if thinking precedes action then thinking needs rationality and logic. the problem is that people can act on weak or false belief.
But it is also not clear if thinking can justify action. I don't think nature can validate action except that nature permits any action that occurs, indiscriminately.
I think lack of justification is a good restraint. I think the intuition or simple belief that you action or belief is justified can be very harmful.
Lack of justification does not defend good OR bad behavior. So how would people behave without false beliefs and a false sense of justification?
I think reason can lead to negative conclusions but does that mean we should abandon it?
I do think there is a lingering specter of nihilism where both reason and unreason can lead to it. But I don't think morality should be soporific and something that acts like a sticking plaster on anesthetic.
A moral nihilist in the sense of being a subjectivist/rejecting objectivism, yes.
Not sure why it seems like I'm "not convinced of the strength of my moral intuitions" though.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Sure, it's unlikely, but nothing (about the ontology of this stuff) would hinge on how likely it is to find particular unusual views.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I think that we have a purely subjective moral system despite what anyone wants or what anyone believes we have instead of that.
What about when morality is put to the vote? If a moral system is widely accepted and democratically endorsed then I don't think it can be purely subjective.
I think a purely subjective moral scheme would not be a morality. In this scenario which would be egocentric and the individual would always be right. However if an objective fact could persuade them otherwise it would no longer be a purely subjective morality.
I don't see why morality should be about wallowing in your own preferences as opposed to trying to reveal some kind of empirical truth. I think the truth may be that we have to be moral agnostics.
The subjective/objective distinction has nothing to do with agreement or a lack of agreement. It's purely about whether we're talking about something that's a mental phenomenon or not. It could be the case that every single person has the same mental phenomenon, so that every single person loves the Beatles, or loves pizza, or whatever. That doesn't make loving the Beatles, loving pizza, etc. not subjective
Quoting Andrew4Handel
The problem is that factually morality is only subjective, and yet we have morality.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
For one, you'd be positing that people are always sure about how they feel . . . which for one, would suggest that you've never been in a romantic relationship at all (and it would suggest that you've probably never had any friends, etc.). ;-) It's not at all the case that people are always sure how they feel. You probably know that already.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Well, because factually, there are no non-mental moral facts at all. There's absolutely no evidence of that, no matter where we look. No reason at all to believe that there would be non-mental moral facts. So it's a matter of having to deal with what's available to you.
I think an agreement is objective. You can't compare mental states.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I do not see how that helps your case. If people cannot decide for instance whether abortion is right or wrong then the moral issue remains unresolved.
If someone opposes abortion one day and agrees with it next week that inconsistency undermines a subjective workable notion of morality. However based on the subjective view they were right on both occasions because they are the final arbiter of morality.
I have no problem with the idea that people can have false beliefs and change how they feel but that is why a subjective morality does not work. Personal I base my moral intuitions on external facts about harm and attitudes etc.
I'm not saying that the agreement isn't objective as a speech act--that is, as a verbal or textual event, say.
But we're not conflating the speech act of agreement with the ontological nature of what people are agreeing on.
Subjective/objective has no correlation to agreement or disagreement. Something can be subjective and every person can agree. Something can be objective and every person can disagree.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
The idea isn't to "help a case." I'm just explaining to you that in no sense does something being subjective amount to individuals "always being right." Sometimes individuals aren't sure how they feel about something.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
All that "they're right" even amounts to there is that they have a strong feeling about it. In that sense, sure they're "right" to themselves when they feel some way. They have a strong feeling that M, and then later they have a strong feeling that not-M. There shouldn't be anything controversial about that.
You can't "udermine" a subjective morality by pointing out anything about it, because it's a fact that morality is subjective as things are. Whatever is the case re morality in practice, with anyone in the world, that's a way that subjective morality works.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
No one is saying that moral intuitions are not based on external facts. No one is saying that we're just imagining murders, say, or their physical effects, their emotional effects on survivors, etc. The point is that the moral intuitions themselves are not something external to us. It's not the external world that's having intuitions. It's you and me and every other individual.
I think the most important aspect of morality is enforcement. It is useless to have moral sentiments that do not lead to action and do not prevent harm or cause well being.
I think either moral standards have to be enforced by the law/police/society etc or by afterlife scenarios or karma.
I don't think that because a moral stance is reached subjectively that it is untrue. The problem is when people act on there false or dubious intuitions and "resolve" a moral issue that way. In comparison a scientists may have an intuition and theory and go about testing it carefully and cautiously to see if it is valid.
I think either we have to wait for karma or afterlife justice or fight to have our moral position enforced (rather like people who fought to end slavery/sexism etc) But I think the lack of clear moral truths is worrying.
I don't think that covers all moral sentiments. Are you saying that covers all moral claims?
People also value character and principle.
People would say you should not steal even if it didn't cause harm, such as stealing from a big company or stealing without detection, because of principle and character reasons.
Likewise most people would oppose defiling a corpse even though the person is dead.
Motivation is also important. For example if you gave thousands of pounds to charity in order to look good you would look good but your character would be called into questions.
I think the reason bad behavior causes pain is often because of the psychological judgement you make not because of the action. That is to say the pain is worst after you discover you have been wronged. Hence pain and pleasure could be caused by the act of making a moral judgement.
I think you could argue that stealing from something very rich still does cause harm, and if you could prove it doesn't, people would have concerns that accepting theft in such a case sets a bad precedent that has net-negative entailments.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I'd explain this by saying that people can experience displeasure at things that aren't physically harmful to them due to our inherited social psychology. Understanding that your kin have been insulted damages your social status, so your brain imposes a "toll" which represents your diminished reproductive prospects.
I'm not a big fan of enforcement for most things, though. (For some things, yes, but the list is pretty small for me.) I'm very laissez-faire, libertarian/libertine, etc.
If you're focused on utility, I think there's some to be had in simply talking about moral views, including things we count as transgressions, with people we're interacting with. Most people have enough empathy--and/or sympathy--that talking about moral views can have a positive practical effect, even though it's not enforcement (because there's no force, no social pressure with dire consequences involved).