Morality and the arts
In her book “Wickedness” Mary Midgley wrote that ‘It is one main function of cultures to accumulate insights on this matter (morality; our motivation, ambivalence, wasted efforts, damage) , to express them in clear ways as far as possible, and so to maintain a rich treasury of past thought and experience which will save us the trouble of continually starting again from scratch. In this work ... an enormously important part is played by what we call the arts ... From the earliest myths to the most recent novels, all writing that is not fundamentally cheap and frivolous is meant to throw light on the difficulties of the human situation ... ‘
I’m interested in views people out there might have on this, that our morals and human situation are explored and reaffirmed in the arts. Of course this is assuming that morality exists and is not constructed.
What has just come to mind is that the arts have become so shallow and meaningless that if we continue to look to them for insights we will be misguided by the content.
I’m interested in views people out there might have on this, that our morals and human situation are explored and reaffirmed in the arts. Of course this is assuming that morality exists and is not constructed.
What has just come to mind is that the arts have become so shallow and meaningless that if we continue to look to them for insights we will be misguided by the content.
Comments (76)
Art and literalism are always creating something new with something old. This is oft how the mind works too, with old memories being used to reference new objects. So the chair you see is the chair you saw and the chair new as it is at the same time, and that is the most sublime look at the chair, the most artistic perspective one can take, the existential gaze.
To go even further one need only to use property addition or subtraction, to create the abstract within linguistic or artistic bounds.
As I have looked and looked at nature, I have come up with less and less to be poetic about. Been there done that. But if you have the existential gaze, as mentioned above that gaze allows one to know that they can always go back to the filled canvas and create a new look from an old look.
My theory of infinite variation makes the potential creativity one can exhume from the world of phenomena, boundless, and the existential gaze is all that is required for artistic prowess to run over that world.
Morality is not often like this, as some laws are set in stone. But any person that works in the legal system knows the minor yet profuse changes in laws that takes place all the time.
I think, that in morality the need to start again from scratch cannot be dismissed. This is because morality starts from the top, the ideal, and all the moral principles follow from the ideal. So as time passes, the knowledge which human beings have come to possess changes radically, so that the ideal must be approached all over again, and redefined in light of the new knowledge. This is a starting again from scratch, and I think it is also why Plato was so hard on the artists. The artists are prone to repeating over and over the old principles, from the past, which must be erased in order to put forward new ones.
That sounds a bit grumpy, and highly inaccurate. Writing really good comedy is a high art form, and at its best is timeless. My children love Monty Python as much now as I did forty years ago. It doesn't shed much light on the human condition, but it's certainly not cheap, and has been enormously influential - in a good way, I would say.
Throwing light on the human condition is one of the things literature can do, and a very important one. But it is by no means the only thing that makes literature worthwhile.
I agree with you that the arts can help us to "explore our morals and human situation", but I don't agree that they have become shallow and meaningless. There is plenty of great art around now. There is also an enormous load of dross. But it has always been thus. I see no cause for pessimism.
Before I checked in with TPF, I was watching an old BBC interview program in which John Cleese and another Python were defending recently released The Life of Brian against Malcom Muggeridge and some aged Anglican bishop. The two old farts were lamenting the state of western civilization, and how TLOB mocked Christ, and so on and so forth. I thought Muggeridge and this old bishop had probably contributed a lot more to the near death experience of Christianity in England than Monte Python and all their works did.
Right, I wouldn't recommend anybody watch Monte Python for moral uplift -- that's not what they do. I'm not sure the bishop does that either, frankly. Or Muggeridge. Watch Python for inspired humor and a good laugh.
As you say, Andrew, literature (and the arts all combined) provide a lot of services for us--intellectually, emotionally, morally, and more.
Culture does provide time & trouble saving teaching through parents teaching their children how to behave -- that's the first crack that "the culture" gets. School, church, the playground, and so forth add on more later.
That was a legendary episode. So much so that the BBC made a TV drama about it a few years back. Quite engaging and interesting as I recall. Worth watching if one can find out how.
I guess I’m trying to focus on two things:
a: that morality exists as an objective set of guides on our behaviour (I await the howls).
b: that art, primarily writing, explains it: Homer, Shakespeare, Doestoevsky.
By art I mean that which carries a weight that has cultural significance. Artists as we think of them now have not always existed. Myths, rituals, ceremonies, legends, those are the sort of thing I’m referring to. Do we have writers like Homer, Shakespeare or Doestoevsky? I don’t think so. And if there was would they be read by many?
This sort of writing is not what people are reading, even if the number of books sold is increasing. Film can tell these sorts of stories, but they rarely do.
JM Coetzee immediately springs to mind. He's still alive and writing.
And John Steinbeck, going back a few decades. The Grapes of Wrath changed my life.
Nick Hornby is not as deep as Coetzee, but I think he matches with Shakespeare, and is still writing.
Vikram Seth is another. I found An Equal Music profound, beautiful, moving and insightful.
Kazuo Ishiguro (Remains of the Day, An artist of the floating world)
David Mitchell (not the funny one) - Cloud Atlas and number9dream
I am currently reading Le Liseur du 6h27, a short but moving and perplexing book. Apparently it was a bestseller in France, which says something about the French, as it is much too perplexing and strange to ever be popular in the Anglophone world. I have noticed there's a lot more reading on trains in France than where I live.
I find the authors above to have significantly greater moral depth than Shakespeare or Homer, who were primarily entertainers rather than artists. Dostoevsky is a different kettle of fish.
I would put JK Rowling on a par with Shakespeare, for her inventiveness, clever use of language, mixture of drama and comedy, and the strong memorability of the characters she creates.
And, picking up the Death of a Salesman ref - Arthur Miller. I believe that play plus The Crucible to be amongst the greatest plays ever written.
This doesn't sit well with the notion that morality is objective, because Dostoevsky's morality - which is essentially deontological and divine-command-based - is a thousand miles from that of Homer, which is that of an honour society where bravery meant everything and compassion nothing. And neither of them would agree with the secular, compassion-based morality that we see in Steinbeck, and that imbues most of Western culture, when it can be bothered to be moral.
I can say more words... Those ones were stolen and adapted from...
[quote=Bill Shankly]Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.[/quote]
Science merely reflects the world, and reaches its zenith in truth and utility. But Art does much more, and it can be seen in cave paintings, and modern works mentioned by others. It operates by invocation, calling into being. It makes possible what was impossible, thinkable what was unthinkable, moral what was immoral and vice versa.
I like music, for example, because I like the art of sound. I'm attracted to certain combinations of melody, harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, phrasing, etc. That's what moves me with music.
I like paintings because I like certain combinations of forms and colors and textures, etc.
Not that I dislike representationalism in the arts, but with that, I like fantasy, "fancy," etc. Show me what you can imagine, for its own sake.
I do not think it is correct to say that art explains morality. That's why Plato worked to build a separation between philosophy and art. Art may express different forms of morality, but philosophy explains morality. There is a metaphysical distinction between "beauty" and "good", although these two get tied up with each other as the inspiration for philosophy. If we seek what Is "good", we find that each particular good, is only objectified in relation to a further end. What makes it "good", is that it is useful for some further purpose. On the other hand, "beauty" (and this is what art gives us), is sought simply for the sake of itself. This places "beauty" as the thing with highest value (sought for the sake of itself), necessarily higher than ethical goods (which are sought for the sake of something else). Plato seems to have been perplexed by this, especially since pleasure gets placed in the category of "beauty", as sought for the sake of itself. Thinking that "good" ought to be higher than "beauty" he sought the philosophical principles to reverse that hierarchy.
What Plato didn't quite grasp, and what Aristotle brought out later in his Nichomachean Ethics, is the importance of "activity", in defining human nature. So when Aristotle looks for the highest good, what puts an end to the chain of "some further purpose", he posits "happiness", and happiness takes the place of "beauty". But happiness still seems to be missing something in relation to human existence because it is natural for human beings to be active. So he proceeds to look for a highest activity. And this is how "good" may supersedes "beauty" as the pinnacle in the hierarchy. By designating human activity as higher than passivity, "good" is now of a higher importance than "beauty" as the inspiration for activity. No longer is activity apprehended as necessarily the means to an end, but the activity, as good, becomes the end in itself.
So back to your quote above, what morality gives us is the inspiration to act well. Therefore a) is a misrepresentation of morality, as it describes more of a statement of ethics (rules for behaviour), whereas morality involves the inspiration to act properly. And your question seems to be whether or not art can give us that inspiration to act. Referring back to the distinction between "beauty" and "good", art seems to give us beauty, but it may not give us the inspiration to act, which is the good.
We do not, and we do not have Homer's and Shakespeare's time, either. Dostoyevsky is obviously much closer to us.
Question: Are you an active reader of Homer, Shakespeare, and Dostoyevsky, or are they placeholders for an idealized literature?
I have read Homer and I can't say I came away with much satisfaction. Shakespeare is more accessible, closer to us, but I'd take Dostoyevsky over the other two, any day.
I quit focusing on "great literature" a while back. 19th/20th century history and essays on the contemporary world have taken their place; biography, letters, etc. Short stories, some of which are great literature, are more appealing.
I read fiction, certainly -- but I'm looking for engrossing story lines and interesting characters at this point. Great moral messages, not much.
Well said. Especially Aristotle’s contributions.
Using the word art is a bit unhelpful, because we generally turn to current or more recent forms of art, which is not what it once was. When I talk about art I’m talking about what was used to communicate with people throughout time and different cultures: myths, legends, rituals, plays, writing, sculpture, the spoken word.
These ‘art’ forms explained, replayed, or reinforced contemporary ideas on morality, among other things. There is no doubt they were entertainment as well. They held things together and aided in addressing contemporary conflicts or doubts. Those morals are consistent throughout our own history. Not much has really changed.
Philosophy may explain morals, but art is how they are transmitted to the people. And it is not there to instruct, (rules for behaviour as someone has said), but to help address and overcome the dilemma they are faced with, instead of starting from scratch every time a problem arises. Otherwise we would not have evolved so successfully and so rapidly.
Nor am I saying art must serve a function. It has no desire to do so because this ‘art’ springs from the people. It does not instruct them, it aids in solving problems and dilemmas, which as I said, saves a lot of time instead of addressing a problem from scratch every time it arises.
Writers like Homer, Shakespeare and Dostoevsky are relevant to their time. I’m not suggesting that we should have people who write like them. But the morality in their stories is not that much different from where we stand today.
When I refer to Homer I'm referring to The Odyssey, which is a tale of morality, so was King Lear. The Brothers Karamazov is a complex story about faith and doubt in God and a world without a God and consequently without God’s moral order, a world of moral freedom; everything is permitted. I’m not an expert on these writers, I’ve chosen them because of their different periods and despite that the stories about morality are not dissimilar. How could they be?
I need to think about this for a bit.
Music is at least as old as any other sort of art, by the way. Art wasn't always for "communicating" in the practical sense of that term.
Yes, I agree that morality gives us the inspiration to act well, not a set of rules for behaviour. It can do that because the sense of morality is already inherent in people. The ‘art’ I talk about might be considered a meditation on morality and everything it covers, a story for each dilemma. So by using ‘explain’ I’m being a bit careless.
Just on beauty in art, which I’m not talking about at all; Greek philosophy and as a consequence art was when beauty became a subject, I imagine Plato would not have considered anything other than Greek art actually art, nor would he have known very little about other far flung cultures and their ‘art’. So the distinction between ‘beauty’ and ‘good’ is really a Greek dilemma. For those far flung cultures art is not about beauty, but purpose and inspiration.
I think you're somewhat wrong about Plato here. He was quite exposed to foreign cultures, and that he noticed the differences between them is evident in his moral philosophy. For him, "beauty" was attributable to all things artificial. The fact that they are created is what makes them beautiful. So art, no matter what culture it comes from is beautiful.
However, the issue has not been removed from us today. When we look at "good", or "virtue", there is an opposite to it, "bad", or "vice". In morality therefore, we distinguish human acts by the opposing principles of good and bad. But it's not proper to hand such negativity to art.; to say that art, which is not your favourite art, is ugly or some such negative thing. By the very fact that it is art, it has beauty.
So in the case of "art" we have totally removed the negative things from the category. Art is creativity, and generation, while the negative of this, destruction and corruption, do not even get into the class of "art". But in "morality" we haven't progressed to that point of removing the negative, "immoral" from the category of "moral". We think that judging human acts according to the opposing principles of good and bad somehow gives that judgement objectivity. But this is false, it's an illusion. That's the illusion of sophistry which Plato tried to expose.
In reality, "good" and "bad", being used as opposing principles, only obtain objectivity in relation to some further principles. As Plato demonstrated, this may be the opposing principles of pleasure and pain. But he demonstrated that we cannot get to satisfactory moral principles through this method of opposition, as "good" by its very nature, cannot have such an opposition. So we need to look to art and creativity as the exemplar of "good" human activity. Then we see that every human act, to the extent that it is intentional and therefore aims at some "good", is itself good. The very nature of being an active human, is good. And in this way we can remove "bad", and "evil", right out of the category of "moral being", as all acts of the moral being are carried out for some good, and we can produce a more truly objective judgement of morality.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Then would it be true to say that ‘every human act, to the extent that it is intentional and therefore aims at some ‘good’, is itself good,’ suggests that only those acts that are beneficial to the community would be added to the lexicon of ‘moral’? And that these acts are carried out by a moral being who already carried the idea of a moral act within him.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
But was he exposed to cultures like those of South America, the Pacific, Australia or New Guinea, and if he was would he have perceived the hidden content of sculpture, song or dance, and if he perceived it would he understand?
In some moral theory, (and I think this stems from Aristotle), there is a distinction made between the apparent good and the real good. The individual moral subject always apprehends and acts on, an apparent good. Whether the apparent good is consistent with the real good is another question. I've seen this mostly in religious material, like Aquinas, where 'real good" is backed up by God. But "real good" could also be backed up by what you propose, "beneficial to the community".
The point is that the apparent good, is not always consistent with the real good. So the intent involved in making this distinction, is not to remove acts which are inconsistent with the real good, from lexicon of "moral", but to remove terms like "bad" and "evil" from the lexicon of "moral', just like we would remove "ugly" from the lexicon of "art". Art, being a creative act always has elements of beauty. Now the person who acts on an apparent good which is inconsistent with the real good is not to be called "bad" or "evil", because that person is still acting for a "good". The person is just misguided, uneducated, untrained, or some such thing, with respect to the real good. And, the person who is mentally ill, who is not even capable of apprehending an apparent good, and is acting in a bad or evil way because of this illness, has one's acts thereby removed from the class of "moral acts" due to this illness. Likewise, something which is ugly, like destruction and corruption, we would not be classed as art, being contrary to creativity.
Quoting Brett
I don't quite see the point to this line of questioning. I think that the "content" of art is very subjective, such that one interpretation might apprehend a completely different content from another. We can take a piece of art, analyze the form, and be quite in agreement concerning the formal aspects. But when we get to the content, and this is the meaning which we assume that the artist has given to the piece, there is bound to be much disagreement. That is because a person will often be inclined to assign meaning to the piece based on what it means to oneself. It is very difficult to put oneself into the position of the artist, to determine the true content, the meaning which the artist has put into the piece. And, there is a type of inversion which artists are prone to practise, and this is to leave the meaning as ambiguous. This allows that the true meaning, and therefore the content of the art, is not what the artist puts into the art, but what the people who appreciate the art take from it. And being what is intended by the artist, this act of giving such that one can take what one wills from it, then this is the true meaning or content, that various observers may take various different meanings from it.
So with respect to Plato, I'm sure he was exposed to various different cultures, especially around the Mediterranean, Persia and Asia. He clearly understood how the content of art was important, and also how the content was open to interpretation. Whether or not he could have correctly "perceived the hidden content", I don't think is even a question we can consider, due to the issues stated above. Interpretation of content is fundamentally subjective.
To tell the truth I wondered myself when you said that. But then I remembered why.
When you talk about art being very subjective and that it may be interpreted differently from one person to another I think you’re talking about a modern idea of art, where artists do play games of ambiguity, where theory suggests the art doesn’t exist until it’s observed, that art is produced by artists, and what an artists produces is art because they said so.
But what I’m alluding to in bringing up New Guinea or Australia or the Pacific is that when we use the word art to address objects that have been made, artefacts, we’re referring to objects that carry a particular weight or meaning or even power. By wearing a mask a New Guinea elder becomes a spirit teacher, the Australian Corroboree interacts with the Dreamtime. We lump these things together as art because they have form, colour, repitition, pattern, etc. (The history of modern art could be said to be that of appropriation). These are the originators of art, like the drawings in the caves of Lascaux in France.
These art forms have a real purpose and might be regarded as an integral part of that community or culture. They certainly reinforce cultural ideas and history, as well as ideas on moralism. It’s true that in terms of the community or culture they are subjective. But my suggestion is that the moral aspects are universal, appearing again in far off places.
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Wertz D. Conflict resolution in the medieval morality plays.
I don't see how this example is substantially different. Exactly what the wearing of the mask means is subjective, even within that particular culture. On one occasion it might mean something different than another occasion. And, it might mean something different to one person than it does to another, even on the same occasion of use. In this way its use, and meaning, is similar to that of a word. You have assigned to it a particular meaning, the "elder becomes a spirit teacher", which though it is particular is very general in nature, and this interpretation is conditioned by your culture. Being very general, and therefore vague, it would be hard to say that your interpretation is wrong, it's just not very informative.
You declare that the artifact carried a particular weight, or special power, but there were probably many such objects, each with its own special power. Today, the electrical engineer, or physicist, will use the word "electron" , and just knowing the significance of that word, and the proper way to use that word, gives this class of people magnificent powers over a part of the natural world which to the rest of us is essentially unknown. I don't see this as fundamentally different from the person who puts on the mask. The mask, like the word, is a symbol, and it is not the symbol itself which holds the power, it is the knowledge of the natural world, which comes along with knowing how to use that symbol, that holds the power. So you look at the mask as if it carries special power, but really the mask just signifies a special knowledge which the person using the mask has. And the rest of the population has great respect for that person because of this knowledge, and also for the symbol itself, because of the power which the knowledge represented by that symbol, brings to the person.
Quoting Brett
I think, that to the extent that the knowledge symbolized by the artifact is real knowledge, i.e. it tells the knower something real and useful in relation to the world, then that particular type of artifact, or aspect of the artifact, will be found in many different cultures, as the knowledge spreads. Different cultures did interact even thousands of years ago. So certain very useful developments, such as the wheel, the circle, and consequently angles and geometry, and also what you suggest moral principles, being very useful, would spread quickly. The moral principles, being the most abstract, would be more difficult to find physical evidence of.
Except that they exist today in our culture.
This part is not really about morals or subjectivity. I’m trying to establish the way these original ‘artefacts’, as I call them, are the precursors to what we now regard as art. Modern art did not spring fully formed to life. For a long time these artefacts played an important art in culture: telling stories, interpreting, instructing, nurturing, as it did in Western culture with Christianity, possibly up until the Enlightenment.
When things moved on from the Enlightenment art took on a different purpose. It moved away from God, the Christian message, the bible, the established view of man and his place in the universe, caught up in the idea of reason and science. It began to exist in itself. Eventually we had the idea of the ‘artist’, who produced art expressing his subjective world of feelings, perception, interpretation and so on. It no longer played the same part in society as the ‘artefacts’ did.
And yet it seems possible that instinctively we still turn to these things for some inspiration, just as they did with the ‘artefacts’: the masks, chants and dances. But art is no longer like that. Commercial interests now drive art: film, television, novels, plays. The content is inspirational but in a form that does not contribute to our lives or society as a whole, it targets our narcissism and encourages the worst aspects of our nature.
Seeing a bifurcation there seems like oversimplifying and cherry-picking to me. Not all art was focused on telling stories, etc. prior to the Enlightenment, and those things also didn't disappear in modern art. You could say something like "There was no non-representational painting prior to the modern era" and that might be correct (although I'm not 100% sure it is--it's kind of weird that it would be, because there was certainly other abstract visual art, exemplified in decorative arts, architecture, etc., as far back as we know about), but that doesn't amount to a dichotomy re instructing, nurturing, etc.
That's not to say that there haven't been various shifts in focus a la trends--no set of aims was ever universal, the best we could do would be to talk about trends, but that has to do with many different factors, including what artists could do and had to do in order to make a living in various eras, including technological developments, including developments of technique, etc.
But it would be fair to say that the Enlightenment was exactly that; a bifurcation.
No, not all art was about telling stories, But it was the primary means of transmission and modern art has moved away from playing that part, because modern art became more about personal expression, about the ‘artist’. It’s true the some modern artist: writers and visual artist, might produce works that focus on the dilemma of morality, but what’s relevant in terms of this discussion is how many people they reach; nothing in comparison to television.
If you're talking about telling stories, then I think that you have to take into account the historical limitations on written language. Prior to the enlightenment, writing was pretty much confined to those educated within the structure of the Church. And if you go back three thousand years, written language was almost non-existent. At this time, "story telling", verbally, would have been the only means for passing knowledge, information, from one generation to the next. So I think it's important to distinguish between modern times, when there is so much written material, information, everywhere, and ancient times when written material was very limited.
Quoting Brett
So I think that this movement of art away from God and the Christian message, is a reflection of the Church's release of control over written expression. Changes in artful expression coincide with the Church's relinquished control over publication.
Quoting Brett
When there are severe limitations in relation to what can be put on hard copy, then only what is deemed as the most important will get that privilege. But when there is much freedom and the restrictions are far less significant, we'll get a much wider variety of "artefacts".
In this conversation I have being trying to refer back to earlier times where most stories were passed on verbaly or visually. But what I’m exploring is the idea that, being the creatures we are, we regard the written work, and the visual work that we see today, as a continuation of that telling, we respond instinctively to it, maybe not so consciously as our forebears, but it’s still there. Language and the telling of stories, from the Indians of the Amazon, to Sophocles ‘Antigone’, to Shakespeare’s ‘ King Lear’, carry this message that I’m calling our morality.
This morality presented in the form of tales, myths, or plays and then the written form, would have reached a wide audience, which was its purpose, done in such a way so as not to be elitist, performed in special institutions, separated from the people, as Shakespeare is today for instance, compared to its origins.
There are always a few writer who still do this, but how big is their audience? How many people can they turn away from the television that people watch, seeking instinctively the message and receiving instead the narcissistic morality of modern times.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I tend to think the control over expression was taken from them rather than relinquishing it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
My feeling is that it’s the opposite. The tales of the past were not privileged by their importance but by their ability to reach out directly to the people. The ‘artefacts’ of today are homogenised and lacking in the sense of morality that was inherent in the tales and plays of the past, and virtually owned by institutions, who then ultimately own the message.
I think that the main issue here is "importance" and it seems like you and I may somewhat disagree on the method of importance, how importance is important. What an individual values will be important to that person, and the person will act to bring into one's own life, and to the lives of others around them, those valued things. So I think it is important to recognize that a wide audience is a product of many individuals holding value in the artistic expression (seeing it as important). This means that we cannot approach the art, or the artists directly, to see what it is about their material which attracts a wide audience, without first understanding the audience itself. For instance, if we looked at the explosion of rock and roll music in the sixties, and the creation of a wide audience (notice that I say a wide audience is created) by bands like The Beatles, we'd be acting in an "appellative" way, seeking a common feature in that audience, a common principle of value within every member of the audience, which was appealed to by the band, and could be named. The problem is the ambiguity factor that artists use, which I described earlier. The important thing which is valued by a member of the audience, may vary from one individual to another, so there can be no such appellation. Then we see that the perception of "importance" within the audience is actually created by the artists through the use of mechanisms like ambiguity, which we might not even understand.
Quoting Brett
For the sake of argument, let's assume that they lost the capacity to create the perception of importance. Let's say that they could no longer keep a captive audience. With methods like "The Inquisition", the Church actually suppressed its own capacity to create importance by denying ambiguous or alternative interpretations of scripture. So if the Church was the purveyor of art, and it lost the capacity to create a wide audience, then the hole created, the need for something important, would have to be filled by other sources.
Quoting Brett
Right, but we need to understand exactly what this "ability to reach out directly to the people is". The "audience" cannot be taken for granted. It must be created, because you might put on a show and have no one come. So the individuals who will form 'the audience" need to perceive importance. Therefore importance is key, because without the sense of importance, there is no audience. When we approach "morality" from this perspective, art, I think it is necessary to understand these concepts of "importance", and "value" before we can even introduce "morality" into the discussion.
As you say here, modern artists may create an audience without any appeal to morality. The money-making machines produce the perception of importance, creating massive audiences, through much simpler, and very efficient means, because the end goal, making money, is much more easily obtained than the end goal of making morality. So we've come full circle now. The artist creates the audience through an appeal to the individual members' of the potential audience sense of value, by creating the appearance of importance. Now the issue is the individual's sense of value. Where does "morality" stand in the individual's sense of value, and how does this relate to the artist's capacity to create an audience?
The tribe and Christianity are similar in terms of the audience and the level of importance. In both of them the people are raised within the confines of a particularly confined culture.
The church has no need of ambiguity to reach a wider audience (except as missionaries, maybe, so I see what you mean about creating a wider audience, and that’s another interesting subject; converting) or to create an audience. Each member is raised to be a member of the audience, they’re believers. As are members of the tribe.
The values and morals are instilled in them on a regular basis by, priests, elders or shamans. These values hold the community together.
They hold the community together because it was those values that formed the tribe. The values came before the tribe because it was the values that, in evolutionary terms, “cultivated and regulated complex interactions within social groups (Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce), enabled their successful development, growth and survival.
The ‘artists’ of these communities created work that contained and expressed these values. The so called art or ‘artefacts’ they created served the purpose of expressing through myths, legends or tales the importance of living those values, and never forgetting them.
But then we get the enlightenment as my bifurcation. The tribe remains untouched, lost in the jungle. But in the Western world the church is challenged; God is dead. Now the audience of the church, the priests, the bible, no longer have the same audience sharing the same sense of importance. The church can never work with ambiguity; you believe in God or you don’t.
However, the values and morals are still there among the potential audience because it’s those values that successfully formed the society. The church didn’t create them, it only institutionalised them. As did the Shamans and elders of the tribe.
So, who are to be the new priests, the new Shamans, the new storytellers that the audience seek?
My position, which I hope I’ve been able to make clear, is that our morality is innate. And we once were part of an audience that responded to the artist/Shaman/priest and their artefacts. The relationship was unambiguous.
The artist/priest/Shaman would create an audience by creating a sense of importance about those morals that the audience already held. But the potential audience is lost, they can’t find the artist who connects. Where is he today? The connection is gone, the inspiration, the tales are gone. There’s a vacuum. The vacuum must be filled. Now there’s room for real ambiguity, and only ambiguity can appeal to a wide audience.
This is the difficult part to understand, what constitutes being "raised to be a member of the audience"? This is the act of creating the audience, and holding the attention of the audience. The artist must create within each individual the perception that the art is important. Within the individual member is a sense of value. Do you agree with this? Let's start with the very basic assumption that this is all that is innate, just a sense of value. Let's suppose that the person is born like the blank slate with respect to what that person will value. The person will learn to value particular things, but at birth there is just a general capacity to value, and this capacity will be directed in various ways, depending on what grabs one's attention, as one grows. Therefore the artist must grab one's attention, and cultivate within each individual an apprehension of the art as something important, and the individual's sense of value will be directed in this way.
Now, let's widen the assumption of what is innate. Let's say that some people naturally look this way, and some people naturally look that way, according to some sort of natural interest, depending on the sharpness of the various senses. Each person has a slightly different physical constitution, forming a different composition, and therefore a different natural disposition. Of the senses, one person might see better than another, who might hear better than another, and so on; and then there are tastes, which influence what we eat, and this affects our internal organs which have a great influence on how we apprehend things. So I think that each person's innate disposition toward "value" is very different, depending on these physical factors.
This is why it is not a simple task to raise an audience. Yes, each person must be raised to be a member of the audience, but each person is different in one's disposition toward value. The artist cannot produce a different message for each different person because this would create contradiction in the artist's overall "message", so the artist's recourse is ambiguity. This is why you should not underestimate the importance of ambiguity. Raising children to be a member of an audience is an act of creating an audience. So in the case of the Church, you cannot take the audience for granted, just assuming that the children are naturally raised to be the audience. The act of raising the children to be the audience is a continuous act of creating an audience, which requires working with ambiguities.
Quoting Brett
You appear to be claiming that there are communal values, which hold the community together. But the innate disposition to value, is not necessarily directed toward any particular common value. So I do not think that the claim that the values came before the tribe is justified. This all depends on the role of ambiguity. Imagine a group of people together, as group. Each has one's own intentions, and therefore one's own values, yet they are together, as a group, a tribe. Suppose these people are working together on a project, like members of a group in an employment setting. That common project they are working on justifies the claim of "communal value". Now suppose the people are just living in proximity to each other, but need to interact on a day to day basis, like a small community. Each person has one's own values, and they manage to live side by side without any overall project that they're working on. They're just living in some sort harmony without interfering with each other, and there is no "communal values". Well, we could say that there is "communal values" if we allow a significant amount of ambiguity. The people are not fighting with each other, they are not stealing from each other, raping and killing each other, I've described the situation as "harmony", so there must be some sort of communal value. But if we were to define, or describe those particular values, we'd be lost in ambiguity. Perhaps what is valued is the sense of communion itself.
Quoting Brett
So I don't think these artists of the ancient and prehistoric tribes are expressing any particular values at all. They are just expressing some kind of ambiguity. The potential audience sees the expression, and its repetition (and repetition is probably very important here), and perceives importance. The very existence of the "audience" creates a togetherness of the people, and this is a sense of communion. You'll notice that in ancient tribes, ceremonies and celebrations were very important. This is carried on and increased in Christianity and all religions. The sense of communion is not created by common values, it is created by ceremonies and celebrations which bring people together. When it is experienced, it is valued. The being together is apprehended as important, and therefore valued, because it is enjoyable and fulfilling in many ways. And from the being together there develops the ability to communicate, resolve ambiguities and produce joint projects, common values.
Quoting Brett
You'll see that I have a different perspective on this now. From my perspective, the artists did create the common values, or at least created the conditions from which the common values followed. The artists created the audience, and creating the audience was a bringing together of people. This was not done through any common values, but with an ambiguity of values. The being together in ceremony and celebration is enjoyed, therefore apprehended as important, and becomes a common value. Other common values follow from this.
Quoting Brett
As you can see, I disagree with this. I don't know how you would support or justify "our morality is innate". It seems quite evident that morality is learned. It is what we are taught when we are young. What I think is innate, is some sense of value, but our values naturally vary widely, and this is not naturally conducive to morality. I think morality comes about, is created by communion, not vise versa. The "vacuum" you talk about here is the self. The self is a void, and overindulgence of communal activity creates a need to retreat into the void. The need for privacy becomes more important than the need to be part of a group when overindulge in communal activity continues unabated. At this point, the feeling of togetherness, as more important than privacy, needs to be rekindled, and that's the work of the artist.
If made by humans, you have an artist who is a product of his upbring, his physiology, who is a member of a species which evolved from single cell organisms a billion/s of years ago. And then you have the question of how those cells came into being. I believe in a supernatural origin for those first cells, so then the history of the artist goes further back, perhaps indefinitely...back to God, and I tthink God does not have an objective perspective, how could he when he really can't be sure what it would be like to be born in Africa with HIV and end up as a drug addict, or be born into a rich familiy in some part of the world.
I think God is in the process of evolving, evolving his ideas perspective, and it is a story that has no beginning, as far as I can see.
So I think an artist is in quite a situation....he/she paints, writes, sculpts etc what the will, and to whose end, how can anyone be sure?
Can an artist really create what they want? Are there consequences? Can an artist go into Hyde Park at midnight, and say, or paint what they want? Will there be drunks, will their art be mocked, will they be attacked?
Safe to paint away in their room//studio, but then if they show their stuff to the world, will there be consequences..will the alpha male progeny not approve? Could they become social outcasts?
What is at stake when you make art? Can moral insight come unhindered in such a complex situation.
I think art which gets people to feel what some things are like, the reality of some situations....morality then might spring from that in the viewers mind. I don't really think complex morality can be taught; people have to come to their own conclusions.
The law is there to keep some semblance of order, quality of life; it is better than the alternative I assume, most of the time.
If you tell someone that murder is wrong, is that moral teaching? Does it naturally lead to the person believing that murder is wrong?
As for beauty, comedy etc...it's a sort of whatever gets you through the night, and on a planet like this, that isn't trivial, and doesn't exclude things from being art, or developing as a person.
This is why we differ so much on the artist and the audience.
If you were to agree with me on morality (and I’m not asking you to) would you then agree with my views on audience and artist, would that then make sense?
You'd have to explain to me what you mean by "our morality is innate". I find this statement to be very vague, ambiguous, and actually not representative of empirical evidence. Let's start with a definition of "morality" as the capacity to distinguish bad from good, and let's assume that this capacity is innate. How is it that we are sometimes wrong in distinguishing bad from good? And why are we taught, as children, to distinguish bad from good, if we already innately know this?
Furthermore, if morality was truly innate, wouldn't all this work by the artists, putting forth the material, and creating an audience, all be for nothing? Isn't the moral message, within the art, there for the purpose of teaching morality? This would be unnecessary if morality was innate.
People are always making the wrong moral decisions in life, despite being instructed in what is right and wrong. Why is this? It’s because it’s a continuous necessity to address it in ourselves, to consider our decisions and consequences, to look at the problem we’re confronted with by addressing previous concerns and experience and weighing up our choices. That’s who we are.
We are not taught as children to distinguish between right and wrong. What parents, teachers and society does is remind us of what we already know when we do something wrong. It does not have to be explained to us from scratch every time we confront a moral dilemma. There is plenty of research out there demonstrating the sense of empathy among young children as young as 12 months. Behaviour also observed in primates. If the answer is that it is something learned then it has to have existed prior to learning, it had to exist to enable small communities to form and thrive.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It’s not there to teach morality, it’s to demonstrate the continuous endeavour required by people to be moral, that the problems people may face in themselves have been around a long time and that people overcome their doubts and eventually take the moral position, or they refuse to and pay the price.
You raise an interesting point here.
It seems to me that you would be more likely to agree with me, because you are born with a set of morals for living in this world, you possess them, as opposed to having them imposed on you.
I think it's more that individuals develop moral stances, though I'd agree that they're born with preconditions or dispositions that make it more likely they'll develop one moral stance rather than another, and then of course there are significant environmental influences, too.
Plato demonstrated that morality is not simply a matter of knowledge, when he argues against the sophists who claimed to teach virtue. It is often the case that we know what is right yet we do what is wrong.
Quoting Brett
If it is an endeavour, requiring effort, to be moral, then this is inconsistent with morality is innate. I think that morality involves developing good habits and breaking bad habits. I also think that sometimes innate features will incline one toward some bad habits, and this is why it is an endeavour, requiring effort, to be moral. It is also why it is impossible that morality is innate. Morality often involves resisting desires derived from innate features.
When I say that morality is not innate, and that it is learned, I do not mean that it is "imposed" on us. I think it is learned, and learning is a product of the will to learn. So morality must come from within, as the desire to be moral, and that must be an innate tendency, but the desire to be moral is not the same as actually being moral. And this is what Plato demonstrated, one can have the desire to be moral, and learn moral principles, but still behave in an immoral way. So moral behaviour is something which needs to be cultivated, learned, but it is a distinct form of knowledge in the sense that it is a learning-how as distinct from learning-that. There is a sort of separation between what we know, and how we behave. We develop our habits of how we do things, prior to actually understanding exactly what we are doing with those methods; in many cases forms of behaviour are learned at a very young age. So when we learn a different, better way, of doing things, we may not have the will power to break the old habits and follow the new way. That is why it is important to show individuals good behaviour from a very young age.
Quoting Brett
The sense of empathy may be innate, but it needs to be cultivated in order to produce morality. That is what I described in the artist's work of creating an audience. Creating an audience brings people together, and the togetherness which is created by the artist, and enjoyed by the audience, allows for morality to be produced through the cultivation of emotions like empathy which are conducive to morality.
So it's not like morality itself must have existed prior to learning, it is these emotive features, like empathy, which are conducive to morality which existed prior to social structure. The problem is that these innate tendencies toward various emotions are very difficult to describe, and they vary greatly from one person to the other, and also they are prone to develop in different directions in the very young child, depending on how the child is cared for. So to create morality the emotions must be directed. The act which directs them toward morality must be capable of grabbing the attention of (entertaining), multiple different children with various different emotional capacities. This is why there is a need for ambiguity, and the art, as well as the moral story, is presented in a general way rather than in a particular way.
Is it your thought that empathy has contributed to morality? That feelings come before morality?
Yes, I would agree that empathy contributes to morality, but in itself as an emotion, it is neither moral nor immoral. And I believe that feelings, emotions in general, are prior to morality. Perhaps non-human animals demonstrate emotions. But one might also argue that training house pets is a form of morality.
Quoting Brett
No, the desire to be moral is definitely not the same as being moral. This is demonstrated by those who desire to be good, and learn what is good, but cannot resist the temptation to do what is bad, despite knowing that it is bad. The desire to be moral would have to be classified with the other emotions, like love and empathy, which are likely necessary for morality, but do not necessarily produce morality. These emotions which are conducive to morality, because they co-exist with other unwanted emotions like frustration and hate and they feedback in a sort of bipolar way, need to be cultivated to actually bring about a moral being
This is why I think that the concept of innate morality is fundamentally inconsistent with the concept that art is important to morality. Art is a form of communication, and communication is the way that we learn things from others which we do not know innately. So if morality were innate, there would be no reason for art to express morality, and artwork could not be important to morality. But if we separate the desire to be moral, from actually being moral, then the desire to be moral may be innate, and art may help us to satisfy that desire.
I wouldn't say that any desire has anything to do with morality. (In other words, desires themselves aren't what we (should) judge to be moral or not. Actions are what are what we (should) judge to be moral or not.)
I think you’re right about those who desire to be good but can’t resist the temptation to be bad. Except I’m not sure that they’re giving into a temptation to be bad. That’s like being bad for the sake of it, choosing to be bad. It’s possibly more like something overriding their morality, like making a decision which will enhance their position, like Eichmann, who made a career move and put his morals aside for the moment. But did he actually have morals to ignore, for instance had they not been cultivated enough by his environment? I imagine he simply pushed them aside. So the desire to be moral was not there at each one of those decision making moments.
To be moral you would at least need the desire to be moral. Otherwise to act morally would just be an automatic action instilled in you from outside, an unquestioning act, which is not morality.
I like to put this issue in the context of habits. Sometimes we form bad habits, and they are often difficult to break. We know that the habit is bad, and that it is good to break that habit, but one might not have the willpower to do it, and end up continuing to do the bad thing. I also believe that moral training is more than just learning good behaviour patterns, the critical part is in learning good thinking habits. Thinking is an activity like any other activity, and a large part of it is habitual. So when we're extremely young, babies, our consciousness, and therefore thinking habits are just starting to develop. At this level, where the conscious borders on the subconscious, or unconscious, is where emotions affect our thinking habits. I think it is essential to develop good thinking habits at this level, when we're very young, because it is much more difficult to break bad habits later in life than it is to develop good habits when we're young.
Quoting Brett
I believe the relationship between choice and habit is complicated. Habitual actions are often carried out without choice, or there's a choice for a related action, which necessitates the habitual action. For example, if I choose to go to the corner store, I will get up and start moving my legs to walk. I don't really choose to move my legs when I'm walking, it just happens by habit. But my choice, and the willingness, to go to the store, makes the habitual actions take over. So the "automatic action", is instilled in me from an earlier time, when I had the desire to learn. The desire to learn allowed me to make the great effort required to learn how to walk, then it became a habit, requiring little effort. You see this in learning to ride a bike, learning to play sports, learning to play a musical instrument, etc.. these things are very hard to learn, at the time, requiring strong desire, and great effort, but once they are learned they become second nature. I think that learning good thinking habits, and learning morality are like this.
This may be a bit of a tangent, but can someone please list a few of the positive (worthwhile? still valuable?) morals that can be learned from Homer or Shakespeare (I have not read much Doestoevsky)? Please leave off anything that has been generally accepted as true throughout most of human history (ie: it is wrong for feuding families to kill each other due to some long forgotten grudge).
As far as I can tell Michael Bay presents as much quality moral discussion in a Transformers movie as I would find in the Odyssey. I am sure the Odyssey has more moral discussion, but surely Odysseus is not a moral icon in the modern age - are we all striving to be the archetypal (Jung) Greek hero? Penelope is the only consistently "good" character by modern standards, but "a wife should be loyal to her husband" is not exactly profound (I think it would actually be far more profound during Homer's time to ask "why should a wife be loyal to her husband?").
Morals in fiction can only be as meaningful as their author's understanding (and even that would require a good writer that can synthesize their philosophy into a work of fiction). So works of fiction by Plato would likely contain far more useful philosophy than anything by Homer (to be fair, we know so little about Homer, that he may have been the most brilliant philosopher who ever lived, but it certainly didn't transfer to the Odyssey or the Iliad).
Shakespeare for morals? Really? I have actually tutored a little shakespeare (high school level - I don't know crap, as is probably obvious in this post), and it is blowing my mind to think that students were supposed to be learning morals. So we learn how not to act if we might be king? I would also note that a play like Romeo and Juliet will potentially teach a very different set of morals depending on whether the reader is 15 or 55 years old.
I think fiction is good for introducing people to complicated moral ideas. After the initial introduction, actually engaging with the philosophical topics themselves will be far more informative.
ZBT
Thank you for that bit. I was hoping someone would point that out :smile:
The point of students studying Shakespeare is not to teach today’s students morals, it’s to study the work of a particular period. I remember a lecturer telling me about a student who said he didn’t like Shakespeare “Because it’s full of cliches”. The lecturer replied that, “Its full of cliches now.”
Shakespeare was written for a particular audience, as was The Odyssey. But the actual morals themselves do not change that much over time, hence my including Doestoevsky. But they are presented in a form relative to the times: as a myth, as a play, as a book.
Whatever the distance between authors, it seems to me that the characters of each narrative face a very similar dilemma in terms of moral choices. The stories are about that dilemma, which might be defined as human nature.
Ok, so we are not reading to learn good morals, but to see how wacky the morals of the past were?
Quoting Brett
haha, that is pretty good. But my point would be that related to morality, Shakespeare is not cliche, but just outdated and wrong. Yes portions are cliche (ie revenge killing is wrong) - but that does not suggest that Shakespeare had some brilliant moral ideas that became so common they are now cliche. That IS what he did with language, where he WAS a genius (I don't like any of his works, but even I can admit that). But not so much with morality.
After reading your next response I realize you are more concerned with "human nature", which I would say includes morality but is not limited to morality. Sure, most works of fiction (even many modern ones) should somewhat inform about the human condition. I guess my only question is why is Shakespeare's discussion of human nature more informative than "Breaking Bad"?
Good point. Supposedly Shakespeare’s plays were performed for the general public, a rowdy,barely literate audience. So, yes, I don’t see why ‘Breaking Bad’ is any different in terms of portraying human nature than Shakespeare.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Brett assumes the existence of objective moral principles, so the changes in moral customs over time are downplayed, human beings at some times are just not properly representing the objective principles.
Quoting Brett
The problem is that even if there are such objective moral principles, upheld by God or some such thing, then we have to allow for human knowledge of these principles to grow and evolve, just like our knowledge of the natural world grows and evolves. This means that ancient mores and customs, may now be determined as "wrong". But also we need to respect the fact that any mores and customs at any time, may be "wrong", and this applies even now. At any given time of "now", the practised customs may be wrong. If an artist apprehends an existing custom as wrong, that person must employ creative skill, tact, in shedding light on that custom as wrong, to avoid scorn by the general population.
Nicely said. I am starting to enjoy how much I can disagree with a person in one thread, then completely agree in the next. Even if it may suggest I (or they, but I will usually assume I) have some inconsistencies in how I analyze each separate topic.
b: that art, primarily writing, explains it: Homer, Shakespeare, Doestoevsky.
These were written at the beginning of the conversation.
I would clarify them a bit more now as;
a) that morality exists in people as “a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex interactions within social groups (that) includes empathy, reciprocity, altruism, cooperation, and a sense of fairness”. (Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce). These have evolved and are no less a part of being human than having a thumb. I regard them as being objective in the sense that we did not chose to grow a thumb.
b) art reminds people of their essential nature and that one must always chose from this suite of behaviours, primarily because they are responsible for who we are and for our evolutionary success and are therefore ‘good’. (Some might maintain that we are not the shining light we think we are and only subjectively good). Also, as an artist, if you are not addressing morality then you are not really telling a true or real story of a character.
But, this morality as we understand it, is essentially the same as it’s always been.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Mores and customs are not the same as morals. Mores are customs and convention of a particular society, not of mankind. Morals are an integral part of being human.
If we are going to say, then, that these morals, or parts of them, are wrong, or relative, then we are choosing to be different from who and what we are. The case of Eichmann and Nazi Germany might be regarded as a case where they decided that morals could evolve in a direction, could be changed, because they are no longer relative to their objectives.
I think we all tend to look at various different issues, or subjects individually. But the more that we can fit them all into one big picture, the more consistency we get within out beliefs.
Quoting Brett
This is slightly different from how I interpreted your reference to objectivity earlier. When you said before, that "morality exists as an objective set of guides", I thought that you meant that there is an objective truth to what is good and bad. Now I interpret what you are saying as it's an objective truth that humans have morality. This leaves open the question of whether our determinations of good and bad are objectively true or not, or whether there even is such a thing.
Quoting Brett
How can this be the case though? It is quite common that two different people, or two distinct societies disagree on moral issues. And it's not just small things, some societies used to practise human sacrifice. Even in the Old Testament, God was portrayed as jealous and vindictive, He'd smite you if you were unfaithful. These are not good moral traits by today's standards.
So you say that it's an objective fact that human's have morality, that they distinguish bad from good. And, you seem to want to say that since the classifications, of which sort of actions are good, and which sort are bad, haven't changed much over the years, these distinctions which we make concerning bad and good, are to some extent, objectively true. But doesn't this really exclude the possibility of moral differences and the difference of opinion on moral issues, which exists between us? And if we downplay these differences, don't we also downplay the need to make the effort to resolve these differences? Wouldn't you agree that a big part of "morality" is being able to negotiate these differences, and work out solutions, compromise?
Thanks Brett. That will entirely satisfy me :smile: I just get easily triggered by the idea that the classics are better than modern works because they are the classics.
I apologize for being slightly off topic, and thanks for taking the time to give me your thoughts.
I’m going to think about this for a bit.
But they do, we see it all the time, you know you possess it, so do your friends. It’s not something we make up day to day.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, if those distinctions between good and bad haven’t changed These morals are evolutionary, through a set of preferences that contribute to the wellbeing of a society. They have developed in a singular vein to what they are now. They have not swung off on some crazy tangent then returned to begin again. In modern times there have been cases of cannibalism, and those people tried to conceal what they’d done. In the case of Eichmann, he knew he was transgressing a set of moral, otherwise why run to South America?
Do you really believe you have been taught not to kill, not to rape? Do you really think that’s the reason you don’t? In your life did you ever get a message from anyone that rape was wrong! Did you ever think, at any age, that causing pain to others was okay? It’s not necessary for each and every generation to learn morality all over again from scratch. Not only is it not necessary, it’s unlikely. Our evolution would be too slow, if not actually reaching a dead end. It’s part of you, just like your thumb.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Only if you can prove they have changed. First you’re suggesting that they’re not objectively true without proving it, you only suggest it might not be true, and then using that claim as a fact to argue the second point, that moral differences exist, as if it was proven.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You continue as if your point was proven: that there are differences, and that we need to resolve them. But what do we need to resolve
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You begin to partly define “morality’ as the ability to negotiate these differences. Even if it were true that there are moral differences, where does the idea of resolving them come from. If there are such differences that clash why would we feel the need to resolve them without possessing some sense of morality? If it wasn’t morality then what would you call it? If you call it co-operation then I suggest you have to consider where the idea of co-operation springs from. Co-operation requires an understanding of reciprocity, empathy and fairness.
Is your conclusion that there must be differences, there has to be differences, because without those differences to be resolved there would be no morality?
It’s like a trick question; if I agree that there are differences then there can’t be a singular morality, and if I don’t agree to the idea that there are differences then there can’t be a morality.
Yes, I agree with this, it is an objective fact that human beings make these decisions. The issue though, with objective morality, is whether or not there is an objective truth to the correctness or incorrectness of those decisions.
Quoting Brett
This is where we disagree. I do not agree that those distinctions between good and bad have not changed. Here's the reason why. Each judgement of good or bad made by a human being is either made in relation to a particular situation, or made as a generalized statement. These two are distinct. The former refers to how we proceed in daily life, making decisions about what we are doing, and the latter refers to generalized rules such as it is wrong to trespass; it is wrong to take another person's possessions; it is wrong to kill a human being; etc..
The category of "generalized statement" must have come into existence along with communication, a "statement" being the product of language. We can argue that the statement is just a reflection of the Idea, which existed prior to the statement, in the Platonist manner, and that these Ideas have not changed, as you say. However, we need to bridge the gap between these Ideas (generalized statements) and our day to day decisions of good and bad. Human beings often, (and I'll insist on that term "often", so that it's not just incidental), choose in particular situations, to do something which is contrary to the Idea, the generalized statement of what is good or bad. Do you agree with me, that even if these Ideas (generalized statements) concerning what is good and bad, exist in a timeless, unchanging way, morality consists in conforming day to day human choices to be consistent with these ideas?
So I think, that what has changed, evolved over the time of human existence, is the capacity of human beings to conform their day to day choices to be consistent with the objective "rules of behaviour". And this is what morality is, conforming our day to day behaviour to be consistent with the rules. So whether or not there are objective unchanging "rules of behaviour" is a moot point, in relation to "morality" because "morality" is concerned with the human being's capacity to conform one's behaviour to be consistent with whatever rules of behaviour are apprehended. And, since the capacity to express, and understand these rules of behaviour has undoubtedly progressed as communication has emerged and evolved, so has the human capacity to conform one's behaviour to be consistent with such rules. Therefore morality, being a description of this capacity to be consistent with the rules, rather than being a description of the rules themselves, must have changed considerably over the time of human existence.
Quoting Brett
So the issue is not whether you've been taught that killing, stealing, and raping, are bad, or whether these ideas are innate. The question is whether the habits which help you to avoid making the wrong decisions (with respect to these rules), in your day to day life, are innate or learned.
Quoting Brett
So my argument is that our ability to understand these moral Ideas, rules, which are expressed as generalized statements, has changed in accordance with how our ability to communicate has changed. And, our ability to conform our day to day decisions to be consistent with these rules (this is morality), has changed in accordance with our ability to understand these rules.
Quoting Brett
I believe that this is an important issue which can only be resolved through a more strict definition of "morality", to avoid equivocation. I suggest we start from the bottom, and define "morality" as concerning the particular choices which one makes in one's day to day activity. The rules which the day to day activity ought to conform with are called "ethics", this is the top, perfection in conforming to the rules, the Ideal.
From one person to another, or from one society to another, there are differences with respect to ethics, the rules. The desire to resolve the differences comes from the assumption of an Ideal ethic, an unchanging law of good and bad, an ethic which is innate within us, such as you describe. We can attribute the differences between us to the differences in our ability to apprehend and understand the Ideal ethic. Without the assumption of an Ideal ethic, I believe there is no inclination to resolve such differences, because there would be no assumed further principle to appeal to in any such attempt. The differences between us would just be considered as a fact of nature.
I described this attempt to resolve such differences as "morality", because these activities fall into the class of day to day activities. However, these activities cannot be said to be consistent with one set of ethics, nor the other set of ethics, because they are intended to resolve differences between the two. So to be "moral" instead of "immoral", these activities rely on the true existence of the Ideal ethic. From one set of ethics, or the other differing set of ethics, the person's actions would appear inconsistent with the rules, and immoral, but in relation to the Ideal ethic, if we allow that there is such, the person's action may be moral. The problem being that all we understand is this or that set of ethics, in the form of statements, and the Ideal if there is such a thing remains in the realm of not yet understood.
I understand and agree with all of this.
To be moral depends on the true existence of the Ideal ethic. This is aspirational, is it not?
“... if there is such a thing remains in the realm of not yet understood.”
There’s two things there: a) is it real?, and b) if it is real it’s not yet understood.
If it’s real, from where does it come?
If it’s not real, then who are we?
If there was no Ideal ethic then we would be immoral creatures because there would be nothing to chose from.
But we don’t know if we are moral creatures, because we don’t know if the Ideal ethic exists. Is that true?
In response to these questions, this is what I believe.
If the Ideal is real, it must be immanent within us, and this would be what you call innate. It would have to be within us due to its nature as an idea. It appears to us as an idea, something within, not as a physical object which is what is external to us. This is supported by the two senses of "moral" which I referred to. In the one sense, we are moral in so far as our actions conform to the ethics of our society. These codes are external to us. But the inconsistency between the various ethics, differences in those external codes, and the problems caused by those differences, drives us to seek the Ideal, as the basis for compromise, or reconciliation of the differences. This requires review, and renewed understanding of the formal principles which make up the ethics. This is a turning inward, to understand the ideas and ideologies. So the Ideal is how we relate to the necessity for consistency, or coherency of ideas, and this must come from within thought itself.
If the Ideal is not real, then understanding would be very difficult. There would be many differences in ethics, ideologies, and inconsistencies in knowledge. And here's what I think is the problem. Empirical evidence demonstrates that all these factors which would be the case if the Ideal were not real, actually are the case. So empirical evidence points to the Ideal as not real. But the Ideal is only apprehended by the desire to go beyond the empirical realm, and accept the reality of something non-empirical, ideas. So it is as you say, aspirational. What inspires us to act, is the desire to bring into existence something which is presently non-existent. This is the creativity of art. So the "aspirational", and this includes inspiration, ambition, motivation, and the Ideal in general, is what has no empirical existence. Therefore despite the fact that empirical evidence cannot support the existence of the Ideal these human emotions do support its reality.
Whether or not we could be moral creatures, without the reality of the Ideal is a difficult question for me, which doesn't really make sense. I think that we must be, on the basis of the first definition of "moral", which places morality in relation to human ethics. So we could still judge morality based on those principles if there was no Ideal. The problem is that we would have no real mechanism for resolving differences without appeal to the Ideal. And the reality is that we are capable of resolving differences, and this is because we assume some sort of Ideal. So we ought to conclude that the Ideal is real, based on that logic. Assumption of an Ideal is necessary to resolve differences, we do resolve differences, therefore the Ideal has real effect in our world, and is real. Following this, we cannot really make any conclusions about "if there was no Ideal", because our world is a world in which the Ideal is real. And since the Ideal is immanent, it must go right to the core of what it means to be alive, so asking that question is like asking what it would be like if there was no life.
For me this may as well be the description of art. Not as it appears to us now, and not for a long time, but as it was in its origins, and art today has its origins there, it can’t come from anything else.
What I called “artefacts” is the work of early societies, tribes and cultures, making real these activities, or made real in terms of tales, myths, legends, or just basic storytelling, sitting around the fire while wild animals prowl around in the darkness. And who else could it be about but “us” battling with these activities, acting morally, whether in the form of gods, heroes, animals, monsters, speaking flames, wily fools, kings, idiots, princes or ghosts. Today the “artefacts” may not be there (Though the post about ‘Breaking Bad’ is interesting. But when people watch it what are they more tuned into? Is it ‘just television’?).
Art operated on a very primitive level, possibly because the world was very simple once. It was about living in the world caught between good and bad. Maybe it reaffirmed things, or instructed, or explained, but it operated on that level; even comedy had its moral. So there was a direct relationship between the story and listener.
In time everything becomes institutionalised. The stories did as well as the art, until they lost their power and became simply entertainment or tools of persuasion.
The forms for telling these tales still exist, and my proposition is that we still turn to them, instinctively, for this ancient relationship. But the content has changed and what we receive instead is something like a mirror that reflects our narcissism.
The storytelling is not entirely gone, but it’s read by a much smaller part of the population.
If our sense of morality is based on aspiring to the Ideal Ethic, then can this situation, if the aspiration towards the Ideal Ethic is no longer spoken of, or reaffirmed in a form no longer taken seriously, shift our sense of morality?