Objective Morality vs Subjective Morality
(I'm new, just looking for a place to argue. Hopefully this will be ok.)
Why is subjective morality respected?
By my ken, morality is simple. It is a collective of people mutually sacrificing their natural freedoms in order to empower the collective. They all mutually refrain from doing things that are naturally within their power, and thus the society benefits.
E.g. Murder, rape, people mutually forsake their natural ability to do these things, and society benefits. society becomes more stable, powerful and functional as a collective.
The benefit here is the power of the collective, in that a cohesive collective of people will always overpower the individual, it will always be more capable of accomplishing things than the individual. When the individual cannot compete with the society, the individual dies out and this is why societies dominate and non-societal individuals are functionally non-existent.
Immorality, in this sense, is the individual doing something that is contrary to this qualification. The use their natural freedom to act in a manner that harms the collective. Often times this goes against the mutually established moral code, the code of mutually sacrificed freedoms, but even if society allows for these actions, then they are still immoral so long as they reflect this condition.
So things like smoking, obesity, etc. these are all immoral, because they harm society.
They harm society, because the objective metric of benefit/harm I use is net yield over an indefinite period of time. All traditionally moral actions clearly increase the net yield of society over this time-frame, while immoral actions hurt this net yield. E.g. A society where murder is legal is less productive than a society where people don't murder each other... Obesity and smoking induce unnecessary expenses upon society, thus reduce net yield.
The point I'm trying to make is, why respect subjective morality? Why respect the way somebody feels, their pain, their suffering, more than objective morality?
If their suffering measurably increases the net yield of society, their suffering is good. If preventing their suffering reduces the net yield of society, then by my definition, alleviating their suffering is an immoral action.
Traditional morality respected this to a very high degree, in that the suffering/death of the individual was and irrelevant when compared the well-being and success of society. E.g. If killing somebody would benefit society, then it is moral to kill that person and immoral not to kill that person.
Subjective/empathetic morality is immoral in my eyes because it harms society and defends the individual, and beyond the argument of morality, this is contrary to civilization itself. Civilization has always been defined as protecting the collective at the expense of the individual. By protecting the individual at the expense of society, you are essentially arguing against civilization and in favor of anti-civilization.
The subjective human experience has proven itself to be completely invalid in every hard science, and as every facet of this universe is defined by these hard sciences, human society is no exception to this rule. Knowing that there is a completely impartial, objective, and correct manner in which we could actually calculate morality that is correct, by the laws of the universe, as opposed to the opinions of humans, I see no reason to respect any subjective arguments as valid.
If the subjective human experience was somehow a valid argument, this is never because of the feelings or suffering of that person. It is because those feelings and suffering directly translate into hard, quantifiable, and measurable outcomes that are in turn harmful to society.
Essentially, the subjective experience of humans is only significant in so far that it actually produces hard, objective, and quantifiable results. If the hard results contradict or are at odds with the humans opinions, the human's feelings, or the human's ideals, then the subjective human arguments are outright incorrect and must be disregarded in favor of respecting the objective truth.
The subjective human experience has never been a valid source of truth, as is seen in my common areas, where human intuition and their subjective vantage have caused them to draw false conclusions.
A very common example would be Geocentrism, as by the human experience, it seems like the sun moves around the Earth, and people always thought this, but according to science, this is actually false.
Hopefully this makes sense. Why use or defend a subjective metric in a universe that has proven to be entirely defined by objective metrics?
If anything is unclear let me know, hopefully I can clarify.
Comments (179)
Because it's correct. Morality doesn't occur independent of persons. It's a way that people think about interpersonal behavior.
Independent of persons, where would we find a metric of benefit/harm? Where would we even find anything counting as benefit or harm?
Correctness by default is not subjective. That's the point I'm trying to make. If your argument is subjective, changes over time, influenced by opinion. There is not anything "correct" about it, it is just mutual consent upon a delusion.
Look at math, something like simple addition, you can say the statement 2+2=4 is correct, because this is not subject to debate. It is correct because it is 100% valid, 100% accurate, 100% of the time. That's the standard of correctness I am defending.
Morality is traditionally subjective, and thus it cannot be "correct" in the same sense as other hard, objective things such as science or mathematics. For any moral argument to be correct, it must be 100% accurate all of the time, 100% proven, these proofs must be 100% replicable, and this argument must be incessantly validated by the world around you. E.g. you add two groups of two, of anything, rocks, eggs, socks, you will always have 4 eggs, 4 rocks, 4 socks. This is the standard of correctness.
For morality to be "correct" in this sense, it would need to be valid and accurate regardless of the existence of humans, independently from the context of humans. Meaning a true, correct, and legitimate standard of morality would be universal, in the same sense as addition, in that the formulas can always be used to measure actions, and calculate the quantifiable morality of any action at any given time.
Any moral argument will be riddled with exceptions. Something like, "Killing people is immoral", there are plenty of legitimate reasons to kill people, and plenty of illegitimate reasons to kill people. The arguments that justify the moral stance that murder is bad are seldom objective, they seldom say that this is bad because the quantifiable result of murder is X units of "bad", meaning hard, objective quantity you want to use.
I argue that morality is something that operates entirely independently from the existence of humans. That morality functions just like any other functional empirical standard within the universe, can be subjected to the same measurements, calculations, and formulations.
Basically, morality, when you boil it down, strip away every subjective argument, and leave only the objective arguments, it becomes something similar to what I state at the beginning.
Basically it is "The sacrifice of individual autonomy in order to benefit and empower the collective of individuals", meaning that anything qualifying under these conditions, of the individual sacrificing autonomy in a manner that benefits society, is a moral action.
When you measure morality objectively, you are looking for a measurement, how can we measure the benefit of a moral action, and thus measure the morality of that action. The manner I argue morality should be measured is net yield to the society. So if society, as a whole, yields a measurable benefit from an action, something entirely objective like GDP, then that action is moral. The objective metric is opposed to subjective things like quality of life or happiness because these are dependent on the subjective human experience.
As the purpose of morality, objectively, is to empower/benefit the society, the measurable aspect of morality would exclusively be defined by the influence upon society as a whole, not the influence upon any individual affected the process.
TL;DR: Why not measure, quantify, and formulate morality in the same sense as any other hard science? To fail to do so is irrational. Science has clearly proven that this method, the scientific method is clearly the superior method, it produces far more reliable and quantifiable results than any other system.
Everything in the universe can be quantified and measured, and that's what I'm arguing in favor of. Formalizing morality into a science, as opposed to letting it exist as a non-scientific area, functioning in a manner similar to religion that doesn't rely on any quantifiable or measurable metrics, that doesn't rely on formulaic standards to derive the correct answer.
~ ~ "How to quantify Morality" (IDK how to quote)
I argue morality can be quantified, and I argue the most valid metric to measure morality is the benefit to the GDP of your society as a whole, over an indefinite period of time.
When morality can be quantified, this means we can measure and prove that one action is more so moral than another, because we have objective and impartial calculations and measurements that validate these arguments. Why not turn morality into a hard science, as opposed to a non-scientific study?
What establishes this metric as objective, and how do we calculate net yield without using subjective value judgements?
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
What are you thinking of when you say "traditional" morality?
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Can you give an example of this?
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
As before, could you give an example as to what you mean by this?
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
But the reason geocentrism is false because it's an unnecessarily complex model with no predictive advantages over heliocentrism. It's still entirely fine to say "the sun rises in the east" if that's all the prediction you need.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
So, one cannot be correct about, say, the proper usage of words?
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
It's also 100% circular.
First, how are you getting "Corretness is subjective" from my comment?
I numbered the reply to your comments.
1. What establishes value? It's cash. As much as cash has a value that fluctuates, it can still be used as a metric that can be measured. Cash is effectively a substitute for everything, it is the intermediary between all things, and this is why it is a good general metric to use.
The market value is far less of a subjective metric than sentimental value. That's all I'm trying to say. Even if it is not perfect, it is far closer to a functional measurement than pure feelings alone.
2. Traditional morality, as in Good vs Evil, Virtue Vs Vice, the traditional morality as established by traditional religions.
3. Subjectively, Socrates says man is made of earth, wind, fire, and water. Man is not made of fire despite the fact that he is warm, this is where humans draw a false conclusion based upon their subjective experience, and this is where we draw the conclusion "human suffering is always wrong" from. We don't like human suffering, thus we conclude it must be bad, and is always bad. This is not a particulary valid point, and it is the equivalent of "A child does not like broccoli, thus broccoli is bad for the child and an unhealthy food."
4.
An example of subjective vs objective yield. Four children are suffering, you have the ability to alleviate each of their suffering. Suffering causes the child not to funciton, it produces nothing. Each child always costs the same amount to keep alive, $10 a day. You are their boss/owner, they are your property.
Child A: You stop his suffering, he becomes a valid worker, he is able to make money. He earns you $20 a day.
Child B: You stop his suffering he becomes a semi-valid worker, he is able to make you money at a rate of $10 a day.
Child C: You stop his suffering, he does not work. He produces no money for your society, but he does not cause any problems.
Child D: You stop his suffering, he becomes a criminal, he does damage to your society at a rate of $10 a day. Keep in mind he does nothing when he is suffering.
You can also kill these children.
Here, the argument of "children should not suffer" is put into question objectively. Logically, Child A should never suffer, because you are losing potential profit when he suffers.
Child B, while stopping his suffering does allow him to be a neutral investment. Costs $10 and Earns $10, it functionally has no different outcome than killing the child. A cost of $0 and earnings of $0. It is reasonable to save the child provided he produces children, but if he does not, there is no difference between killing the child and stopping his suffering.
Child C, stopping his suffering accomplishes nothing. He still costs $10 to keep alive, and he accomplsihes nothing when he does not suffer. Spending energy to stop the child's suffering is 100% wasteful, because this changes nothing about the situation beyond his subjective experience.
Child D, stopping his suffering clearly causes a problem. Your society is worse off when this child is not suffering, because he does damage to society that he could not when he was suffering. In this case, stopping this child from suffering is an immoral action, because it harms society.
5. As for proper usage of words, you could still define that in a mathematical algoryhymic sense. A computer can speak in proper grammar, and this just indicates that it is dictated by an objective and empirical model, even if it is a complex one. There is no amount of opinion or feeling involved in speeking with correct grammar, when there is with philosophy.
6. As for the circular aspect. I don't really know what you're trying to say. That math is "circular"? Math isn't even based upon logic, math is just a depiction and description of quantity in the world around you. If math is somehow circular logic, then the existence of quantity is equally as much so circular logic.
Thanks for the reply. =)
Because you argue that philosophy is correct. Philosophy is entirely subjective. If philosophy is correct, that means correctness is somehow a subjective condition.
If people reject the collective than they are not people at all. They are animals at best, and still, as even feral humans, much like many other animals, had some degree of social interaction, groups, families, packs, etc, then if somebody rejects all of these societies of mutual benefit, they cannot be considered a feral human at this point. These people rejecting a social existence are essentially rejecting their own existence, as their own existence has relied explicitly upon the collective success of the species.
These people are degenerates, for lack of a better word, examples of devolution to have strayed so far from the baseline characteristics of what makes them human. Think of an ant trying to survive without a colony, it just dies. The species these humans are a pare of are explicitly defined by this self-sacrifice for the collective, and they have been defined in this way for thousands of years. To regress to a more primitive state is not a respectable stance at all. He may well deprive himself of opposable thumbs and thought at that point.
Mutualistic and collective organisms are well known to the world, things such as ants and bees, and humanity has rapidly become a species that is very similar to these large-scale mutually co-dependent species.
Essentially, is a wolf that rejects his fangs, even a wolf at all? Mutualism is the only reason human societies have been able to advance past farming, and to argue against it is to argue against civilization itself. It may seem unfair to have selflessness forced upon you, but that is truly the only option beyond being feral. If a man is to turn his nose up at selflessness, society must turn their nose up at this man. The man who condemns civilization, needs be condemned by civilization in the same respect.
Mutualsim is the cornerstone of civilization. The pinnacle of mutualism is selflessness, identifying oneself only as a part of society, thinking only with respect to what is best for society and disregarding what is in one's own personal interest.
The people who condemn mutualism and defend individualism must in turn be condemned by their civilization which was wrought entirely through mutualism, even if this mutualism was flawed and adulterated by self-interest.
It's a matter of extremes. Pure individualism is feral. Pure mutualism is the pinnacle of civilization, the pinnacle of society, each person selflessly acting in the best interest of society and disregarding themselves, their pain, their suffering, their feelings, and their opinions completely. This means to stray towards one extreme is to be more feral, and this is contrary to the success of your society, as well as the success of the human race.
Individualism can only be defended in instances where the collective is flawed or corrupt, and thus being selfless for this collective is less beneficial to society than being an individual. One can argue this will always be the case, that any collective is inherently corrupt, but even still, a corrupt collective will nearly always have more power and more capability than an individual. A corrupt civilization will often be more civilized than a feral individual, at least so long as there is selflessness and mutuality. The corruption just reduces the yield of that selflessness, it causes the selflessness to provide only 20% of the value it actually would in a purely mutualistic and entirely selfless society.
Cash represents value. If cash established value, there would not have been value before cash, but there clearly was. Humans establish value, and value is subjective. So you're starting with the way you subjectively value things and call it objective.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
And just who is using pure feelings alone? Not everything even has a market value. What about environmental degradation or climate change? What is the planet worth?
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Not all moral philosophy uses human suffering as the central metric.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
But there is nothing objective about reducing the value of the children to the value of their labor. What is Einstein's market value?
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
But proper grammar and spelling are entirely based on human convention and thus, according to you, subjective and worthless.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Math is decidedly not about describing quantity in the world around you, because there are no two identical apples. Math is an abstraction of such quantities that allows you to perform certain operations. I think it's a matter of some debate whether math is just a form of logic, but regardless it does not generate information by itself. Numbers are empty unless applied to some real-world scenario.
So philosophy can't make claims about (objective) facts in your view?
The Needs of the One Outweigh the Needs of the Many
Even the writers of Star Trek can't make up their minds :smile:
No, it can't.
If a philosopher says "I philosophize that rocks fall to the ground when thrown into the air", it stops being philosophy and instead just becomes a fact.
Any time that philosophy makes any valid, impartial, and objective argument or claim about reality, at that point it stops being philosophy and becomes science. Philosophy is limited to the subjective arguments related to these things, because to have an impartial argument rooted in nothing but objective data and quantifiable formulas is no longer "subject to debate". It's subject to being tested, subject to being disproven, but it's not a debate.
Philosophy, as I am familiar with it, is entirely subjective, it's just people's opinions about thoughts and the human experience. These people don't prove their arguments with data, with testable formulas, they defend them in a non-scientific manner.
Something like, it is much more difficult to disagree with Newton's Laws in any valid and respectable manner than it is to disagree with somebody's philosophical argument. You can always disagree with a philosophical argument, and as there is no real standard or verity, no calculable metrics that inform you how truthful and actuate a statement is, how much more true or false a statement is, this means that validity is entirely subjective, it is entirely up to the opinion of the reader, and beyond that the opinion of the general public.
The point being that something like science is never subjective, whereas philosophy always is. You can have a subjective, opinion based argument about hard quantifiable things, but that doesn't mean your argument is valid in the same sense as a hard, quantifiable argument about said hard, quantifiable things.
1.
I'm not saying that value did not exist. I'm saying that value was not as clearly and objectively quantified before the existence of cash, which it wasn't. Bartering/haggling was far less standardized and far less accurate a way to represent value.
The value of cash is determined with some degree of volatility and some degree of subjectivity, this is not particularly relevant because it is easily one of the most accessible, broadest, and most stable metrics to measure something like value.
It may not be perfectly objective, but cash value is far more objective, far more static, and far more valid than using something like sentimental value. Even if it is imperfect, it is far closer to a perfect metric to measure value than any purely philosophical, ethical, moral, or otherwise baseless and non-quantifiable arugment.
2.
Everything has a calculable value, even if it does not have a market value. As for the planet, you calculate the amount of raw accessible resource, the amount of general yield per year in terms of renewable crops/resources. This is a base-value, and then a value-added per year.
As for the cost of global warming, you can still calculate this too. You calculate the decrease in revnue, the decrease in yield that occurs when the planet is subjected to global warming.
This is a broad undertaking, but there is nothing that exists within this universe that is not explicitly quantifiable, including the value of the planet, the cost of climate change.
3.
This is a fair point? So you agree that human suffering is a completely invalid metric and cannot be used to justify any argument? I reference this because human suffering, ethics, morality, and these sorts of philosophies of compassion are incredibly prevalent in Western society.
4.
The market value of Einstien. You can estimate this. As I said, everything in this universe is explicitly quantifiable, and even Einstein's vlaue could be estimated.
You take the cost of keeping him alive, educating him, providing him area to work.
His yield, as a physicist, as a genius, as somebody who has the capacity to make advancements in the field. You compare the rate at which he publishes paper, to the average value produced from an advancement in physics. You look at the percentile ranking, the quality and caliber of his papers, and how this relates to the value they produce.
The yield, the extra value produced by this scientific discovery, when you look at the value over an indefinite period of time, becomes incredibly high, but it still exists.
Think of the value created by things such as nuclear wepaons, nuclear energy, these sorts of valuable technological advancements that Einstein assisted in creating. You measure this value, similar to a patent, where his own discovery is "paid" a royalty within the existence of these things, as in this royalty, this % of the project that he is responsible for, this % of the value, is calculated as value that he produced. The same effect applies to influences within his field, where his discoveries influence latter discoveries.
I'm not saying these are easy to quantify, but if something exists, it can be quantified.
3.
Grammar is defined subjectively, but the results it produces are quantifiable. Similar to philosophy, it is defined entirely subjectively, but it still produces quantifiable results.
The value created by grammar is the capacity to communicate clearly, and obviously communication produces a very large amount of value. It creates the potential for value to be created, where without the existence of grammar we would not have it.
Grammar functions despite the subjectivity because it doesn't need to be objectively optimized. Optimizing grammar and language would lead to increased yield, but it functions say at 80% capacity, earning 80% creating 80% of the potential revenue it could if it were optimized.
Grammar, is similar to computer programming. As people are not constrained in the same ways as computers, the expense of having inefficient grammar and inefficient communication is not very high, and even still, grammar is a very efficient way to communicate despite this. Humans evolved the ability to say the most with the least amount of words, just because talking at length with an unnecessary degree of specificty is pointless.
Computers have their own grammar and it looks nothing like huamn grammar, this is because computer programs were designed to optimize the amount of data you can fit into a certain amount of memory, and the English language is not optimizedin that respect, it is optimized with respect to clarity and efficiency of speech.
„çÚ¹¬~uôŸíYáx÷ö¨¹ðf¾ºk+l á!O,e˜žGRkÄ~$ø'_ø{âÛŸ øŽ¢¼·U}Ñ1häFVRzŽÞÄLLæqÉ¥ v®Gð7‹µo
j>*Ót ë"à iºDùW'·÷€îFq޹ьpA÷õ© QŠUÍ) ,ôÍ,imþ±©Á¦iVs^]Îá"†%,Ìsè+¯ø§ð¯Æ
‡ü%zÅ ôAâ–ßn¦6=œw ‘ë_`ü$Ðt
This is and example of what some kind of computer data looks like, and clearly humans cannot speak like that, even though this language is technically more optimized and more efficient because it takes up less space.
4.
As for math describing quantity. You're somehow confusing quality and attributes with quantity, these are not the same thing.
A)Base:Object
Type:Apple
Color: Yellow
Quantity: 1
B)Base:Object
Type: Apple
Color: Red
Quantity: 1
When you add quantity, you have two apples. As for apples that are yellow, you only have one in quantity.
It's not an abstraction, it's just that reality is more specific than pure and simple numbers.
Even without the Apples, without any objects. Just
A)Quantity: 1
B)Quantity: 1
Together, you have a quantity of two.
Math still works perfectly. As for math creating information by itself, that's again unture. You can take pure math, existing without any relation to the real world, and then you can then in turn use this to create practical applications. The pure math still functions perfectly fine without reality, it's just that it can also be applied to reality.
Something like trigonometry, angles. These function perfectly fine without reality. If you use pure math, you can derive something like the process of triangulation, without ever having to reference the hard, physical reality in which we live in.
Math generates all of this information regardless of whether or not reality exists. Triangulation would still function mathematically even if reality did not exist. The thing is that we largely use reality to derive useful forms of mathematics, not that mathematics is somehow reliant upon or related to reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_packing
Here, math can explain to you what the most space-efficient way to pack spheres is. It can do this in our reality, 3 dimensions, but it can also do this in 4,5,7,8 dimensional space.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/HyperspherePacking.html
Despite the fact that we will never need to pack spheres in 8 dimensions, mathematical still functions despite the lack of reality, and it can still give you the correct answer on how to do this.
Good comment.
The difficulty with this apparently common-sense approach is that "objective" communicates universal applicability, and independence of individual beliefs, opinions, and so on. An objective morality would have to be universally accepted and agreed. After all, if it wasn't, it wouldn't be "objective", would it? And, to conclude, there is no universally accepted morality or moral code that I know of. I'm open to learning here: have I got this wrong?
The problem I have with your approach to value, in general, is that value is always value to somebody. There is no "object" involved here, no cosmic table of prices. It's not objective.
Using "market value" doesn't help, because market value is just value to market participants. An average measure of what an item is worth for an average participant. It's all inherently subjective.
Take the value of gold. Gold is an important resource for e.g. circuits, but it's also used for investment and as ornament. It's value isn't based on any physical characteristics of the gold directly, it's based on what people think it's worth to them. Market values are interpersonal and not objective.
That problem only gets worse when you get to goods that don't have a market. Sure you can come up with all kinds of formulas to establish hypothetical values. But that's all they are - hypothetical. They're subjective guesses on an already subjective metric.
And at the end of the day, there is still the elephant in the room: what makes value the objective determinant of morality? "Value is quantifiable" is not a convincing argument.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
I am not sure I'd call them completely invalid, but I don't know think suffering is a good metric, as it leads to absurd results.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
You seem to be using "optimized" and "objective" interchangeably, but I don't think they're the same thing. You can optimise e.g. information density for a given purpose, but that won't make the language more objective.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Actually that quantity is not an attribute is kinda my point. Quantity is not a physical property, it's a human abstraction.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
The math "works fine", but it doesn't tell you anything about reality. There are no perfect triangles or perfect spheres. To apply the math, you have to abstract reality into a model, apply the math to the model, and then interpret the results.
Sure. So what's an example of ontology that isn't making a factual claim (re objective facts) in your opinion?
Mainly for @marzipanmaddox:
Price represents value, and because value is not uniformly distributed (it being a subjective quantity), the price may fluctuate.
Sure an iPhone or a granularity-based tv is $X and $Y, respectively, and that's what it is. But second hand,the iPhone will have lost less of its price (because it loses less of its value) than the granularity-based TV set.
A friend of mine, Victor I., used to say, "everything costs as much as someone else is willing to pay for it." And of where to hang out mostly in Toronto to pick up fares if you are a taxi driver, (Victor was), he'd say "The best spot to pick up fares is where the fares are."
I think that this claim is based on a misunderstanding. Just because we as citizens of a Western, liberal society can choose and adopt our moral values and rules, that does not mean that they come from within or are subjective. If they were, it would be up to any individual either to create or to sample his or her own morality, just as any DJ can create pieces of music by sampling from jazz, hip-hop, techno and even folk-music. No problem with that.
Even if we leave aside the question whether I am really free to choose my moral values and rules, or if - as I think - that this choice is largely determined by my character, my peer-group and other influences, a moral system - unlike a piece of pop-music - has to be coherent and consistent. Just image a liberal like, say, Michelle Obama announcing that she has become a member of the NRA, and that she now holds homosexuality to be "against nature", probably even a sin. People would wonder if she is out of her mind.
Now if morality really came from "within", it would be a result of my personal whims and predilections, and there is no reason why my whims should show any coherence or consistency (after all I can watch a splatter movie tonight and tomorrow go to a concert listening to a string quartet from Mozart).
Therefore moral values and rules exist "out there", they are not objective like the moon, but they have a status that is beyond personal whims and predilections. I am (more or less) "free" to choose or adopt among existing moral systems (i.e. values and rules), but I am not their origin, which would be the case if they were "subjective" and that they "come from within".
Another point liberal Westerners tend to forget: That we are able to leave the moral world of our family in order go "shopping around" in the market of existing moral systems is a privilege and an exception; it is not typical for morality as such. My guess is that if the vast majority of all people of the present or the past abandoned the moral system of their group (family, caste, class, village...) they suffered severe consequences, from being just the village weirdo, to being ostracized or even killed ("honor killings"). Those who take the moral world of the USA or Germany (as they are today!) to be representative for humankind in general must be really blinkered.
Therefore the claim that morality is subjective is wrong, from a philosophical and from an anthropological point of view. Morality is a *social* phenomenon, even today in liberal societies.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Def. : "subjective": based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes or opinions; dependent on the mind or on an individual's perception for its existence
That's my view. (Not that I'm the person you had the discussion with.)
Quoting Matias
And indeed it is.
Quoting Matias
No idea where you're getting that notion from. (Assuming it even works where we're talking about utterances that do not have truth values.)
Quoting Matias
What would that even mean? They're not objective like the moon, but they're not subjective either. What's the third option? (And if it's going to be "intersubjectivity," that doesn't amount to anything aside from the fact that people have subjective moral views that they can then utter objective agreement about, interact with other people with respect to, etc.)
Quoting Matias
I don't think you are, really. Just as with beliefs, we don't really choose them. That doesn't mean that we can't influence them at all--although it's not necessarily easy to influence them, but it's not like picking an ice cream flavor or something like that. You're going to believe what you do, feel what you do (about moral issues, etc.) because of dispositions you have, because of deep-rooted other beliefs and feelings you have, etc., where you didn't simply choose your dispositions.
Quoting Matias
Here, you're confusing ways that one must behave publicly for practical purposes (to avoid being ostracized, jailed, lynched, whatever) with personal beliefs, feelings, etc.
Quoting Matias
People interact with each other in many ways that are related to their moral views. That doesn't make the moral views the same as that interaction. That's putting the cart before the horse. If you don't actually feel that such and such behavior is right/wrong, permissible/impermissible, etc., then it's not a moral view that you hold (even though, for practical purposes, you might publicly act as if you do hold that view). Such feelings can't obtain socially.
You are correct in this. Just because we do not know of one, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Meaning, if we reduced all moral arguments to nothing but numbers, nothing but raw measurments that are completely independent from any subjective interpretation of these arguments. We would see trends and correlation that describe what part of objective reality it is that subjective morality is functionally optimizing.
I argue that the something being optimized by traditional morality is the net yield of society, bascially how productive society is. A moral society increases much greater yields than an immoral society, and this objective benefit of greater yields is what allowed society so flourish. If morality only provided subjective yields, then a moral society would objectively be no more successful than a completely immoral society. The thing is that morality clearly produces objective gains, it produces a greater net yield over an indefinite period of time.
By my assertion here, objective morality would just mean maximizing the net yield of society. The purpose of morality, that which legitimized morality, was the fact that morality led to increased net yields within the society. That society became more successful, and thus more powerful, thus morality comes to dominate the planet through means of overpowering and outcompeting the competition.
This is to say, I would defend optimizing the net yield of society over an indefinite period of time, claim this argument is the trump suit of morality. So rather than have an argument about ethics, or any other subjective interpretation or morality, we can now measure an action, determine how much it increases or decreases the net yield of society, and since this fluctuation in net yield now functions as the definition of morality and immorality, this number is all you need to rely on, and can now ignore any subjective arguments.
This does lead to atypical moral results, because suddenly murder/forced-euthanasia is now an incredibly common occurrence, just because, according to this standard of objective morality, these killings are measurably more so moral than allowing the person to live. E.g. A retired person, makes $0, costs $100 to keep alive. If you kill this person, the moral yield is $100 of good, while keeping them alive is -$100. This is morality with respect to the purpose of optimizing society and maximizing the success of society as a whole, as I would argue this is the only factor that legitimizes subjective morality, because without the objective gains provided by morality, it never would have been capable of overpowering rival social systems and thus coming to dominate the globe.
Yes, sure, money is flawed. This is a very fair point. I'm not defending money as perfect, I'm just saying that it has a higher degree of legitimacy than subjective value.
As for measuring true value, take gold for instance. The perceived and subjective value is not really worth anything, save for the case when subjectivity becomes objective, so while the value is fallacious, it is still functionally valid because international markets "play god" and enforce this human delusion and fallacy as if it were fact. Even if it is untrue and fallacious, this is irrelevant because the fallacious value effectively functions the same way a factual value owuld in the world.
This is the key point here. Even if value is subjective, the collective delusion, the mutually agreed upon delusion of the human race to functionally exist as if this fallacious value were actually factual is enough to validate cash value as an objective metric. Even if it truly is subjective and fallacious, it functions as an otherwise objective metric.
Something like "A large man blocks a door way, he says "You can't go in there", you try to enter, he pushes you to the ground, every time you try." Here, it is certainly fallacious to argue that you cannot enter that doorway, because this is physically possible, but the influence of human behavior essentially makes that statement factual, even if the factuality here is artificial.
The true value lies in circuitry and any other objecitve use of gold. To measure value you can calculate the raw capacity for work that gold has. You can say gold has this rate of capacity for current, works for this long of a time, the value of the work done by gold is on average X. While this pure value is hard to calculate, this is why the cash value is so valuable, because this while this is not true value , it is the functional value as agreed to, by the mutual delusion of people, and thus functionally factual.
I don't have the mathematical capacity to dertimne the raw objective value of the work that is done by gold, but this, like all things in the universe, can be quantified, simply because the entire universe is finite and the interaction of all finite quantities within it is defined by a large array of equations.
2.
Yes, it is subjective, but a large amount of that is due to consumerism. A massive proportion of this subjective value within society can be stripped away if you strip away consumerism. When the people don't handle money, but instead only the enterprise, then the subjective value of money becomes much less subjective, the opinions of these people, in relation to Iphones or anything else, is no longe relevant because they don't have money.
Think of an animal. A bull. People can easily quantify the value of food used to feed cows and land used to raise cows, because the cows themselves do not influence the subjective value of these things. The cost of land and food is just subtracted from the profit made from butchering the bull. The costs here function regardless of the bulls opinions of the land or the food. The same system can be applied to humans when their lives are simplified.
The value becomes much easier to calculate when the humans have no say in the value, in the same sense that farmers will always buy the most economical food, the most economical pasture, to raise their cattle and thus reap the highest profit, the same can be done with respect to humans. Rather than a subjective investment based upon the human's opinons, it just becomes a matter of money in vs money out, money spent vs money made.
It just becomes a matter of making the most amount of money while spending the least amount of money, over an indefinite period of time. The same system of optimization that is used in any other business. Clearly this can be applied to humans in the same respect as cattle or chickens, because cattle and chickens are animals, while humans are no less animals themselves.
Just as there is no subjective value that arises from the cows subjective experience and opinions, there would be no question of subjective value of objects within the human society.
Yes, exactly this. 100% spot on. I argue the objective metric that would represent this is "net yield over an indefinite period of time. Communities with higher net yields over this timeframe are flourishing, and those with low or negative net yields are languishing. It's a matter of translating subjective or vague definitions into very specific and quantifiable representations of these same arguments.
The argument akin to. "The bigger stick is bigger because it has more wood, the smaller stick is smaller because it has less." , when you don't define these with numerical representations, you create a subjective system where people can debate, there is no hard evidence that "yes, this stick is factually and unqeustionably longer than the other one."
When you have measurements, you can firmly and unquestionably state that one stick is longer than the other. You can say that this stick is heavier than the other. If you ask somebody to hold two similar sticks, tell you which is longer, which is heavier, they will have trouble doing this through their own subjective ability to perceive length and value, especially when these sticks are similar in size and weight.
When you use hard measurements, you can have a factual measurement for each of these sticks, and you can tell exactly which one is longer and exactly how much longer it is. You can tell exactly which one is heavier, and exactly how much heavier it is.
This is the issue I have with subjective/non-quantified morality, is that it never gives you a hard, verifiable, and provable answer. It is always people shouting "My stick is longer!" , "No, my stick is longer!", it's this pointless and endless bickering that I can't defend, and this is why I argue we simply "measure the sticks", and the measurement I propose as an indicator of general morality is net yield of the society over an indefinite period of time.
You're deep into non-quantified arguments here, arguments entirely dependent upon the human conciousness, and that's not really where I have any sort of argument.
I'm saying "If you measured the influence and impact of an action, what measurable results, indpendent from the human mind, would be present as definitive factors of moral actions"
That, if you measured morality with nothing but numbers, what numbers would correlate with actions seen as traditionally "moral", what is this quantifiable, measurable, and objecitve benefit that is gained from actions that are traditionally viewed as moral or good.
The objective benefit, the one that functions outside of the human conciousness, is the part that is relevant. The objective yield is what allowed morality to become a powerful and dominant force, to become the backbone of society. If there was no objective gain, then it would not have produced these incredible results. A moral society would have had no advantage in regards to power, cohesiveness, strength, or functional capacity when compared to immoral actions.
Basically, if morality did not provide objective and quantifiable benefits, then morality would function as little more than a bauble. It would have no measurable impact on society, society would be no better or worse off with or without morality. I argue that morality benefits society, and this means there is an objective, quantifiable, impersonal, and impartial affect of morality on a human society, a benefit that they physically experience in the real world, outside of their body and mind, that then allows them to become more successful.
I say that these hard quantifiable results of morality are the only aspects of morality that legitimize this concept. Without the objective gains, morality would be as illigitimate as homeopathic medicine or crystal healing. I would argue that morality is more so legitimate than these things, and this means the objective benefit can be quantified, in the same sense that science can do the same thing with aerodynamics to create formulas and equations that define the nature of aerodynamics.
I argue the same can be done with morality, and when you quantify morality, you come to functional equations that can tell you, without and doubt, without any debate, which actions are more so moral than other actions. It goes beyond the question "Is this good", and it goes to "How good is this", it gives you a hard, verifiable measurement that explains exactly how good, how moral an action is.
The endless comparison of morality to money is reasonable, but you don't seem to understand the implications of this argument.
Yes, morality, similar to money, is subjective. Despite this fact, look at the study of economics. Regardless of the subjective nature of the value of money, economics can still, always, reliably attempt to maximize the economic nature of a function, it maximizes how profitable and successful and business or enterprise can be, it maximizes how stable and functional the economy of a country can be.
Yes, morality is similar to money, this means, by default, there needs to be a science that is the equivalent of economics for morality. Moral economics would effectively allow us to calculate and formalize morality, allow it to function in a way identical to economics, that reliably and beneficially potentiates our ability to maximize the economy of our actions, maximize how profitable and prone to success our decisions are. With moral economics, we could use "moral dollars" to weigh out exactly how moral one action is compared to another, just like how economics can understand the value of one commodity when compared to another, depsite the fact that these values fluctuate.
We don't have a science of moral economics, and this is what I am arguing in favor of. Despite the subjective nature of both morality and money, money has produced the social science of economics, and there is no reason that morality itself should not have a comparably potent and potentiating science that allows society to understand morality on a quantifiable and measurable level, beyond the level of sheer opinions and feelings.
As for the subjective nature of morality, I will explain my understanding of it.
Morality, draws upon instinct, it draws upon psychological responses to external (and internal) stimulus. Morality essentially reflects this instinct of survivial, the instinct of survival causes us to feel a certain way about things, causes us to feel empathy, compassion, sympathy, anger, rage, etc because these feelings were essential for our survival in the wild. They were essential at least to the point where they potentiated the survival of the humans who experienced these feelings to the point where those who did not failed to compete with those who did.
Morality is rooted in this "spider sense", this instinctive ability to feel a certain way in a certain situation, without really having to truly understand or quantify what is being done. This instinct is what allowed for animals to function and survive in groups, and these groups of people formed societies, and the societies were always able to overpower the individual due to sheer size and force.
This animal instinct was perfectly valid in the wild, and clearly it was able to empower the humans to a point where all humans have these feelings. As there are nearly 0 people without any degree of emotional capacity, this indicates that the people, and even our animal ancestors, with these instinctive beneficial feelings that increased the probability of functional social cohesion eradicated those who didn't.
That being said, we must understand that the basis of morality, the original seed from which the tree of morality grows, is that of instinctive hallucination which potentiates our suvival in the wild. The system of beneficial psychological hallucinations that allowed us to become successful in the wild clearly is not going to be optimized or designed to function in this domesticated environment which is clearly very different from the wild.
Think of a tiger. The tiger's stripes allow it to blend in in the wild, to give it camoflauge. The orange helps it blend in with the setting sun. You take the tiger out of the jungle, and all of a sudden these natural advantages, which evolved over millions of years, that allow the tiger to thrive and dominate, suddenly become disadvantages.
If you put a tiger into a city, clearly it's big orange coat is going to make it a clear target for any potential predators. Something that naturally evolved, to empower the tiger and propel it to natural greatness is now a clear disadvantage.
Something similar really happened with moths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution
These naturally evolved to be black and white spotted to blend in with tree bark. When the industrial revolution occured, this natural evolution was now a disadvantage, because the trees and other things were all coated with soot, they were much darker, and the natural camoflauge became a disadvantage in an unnatural society. This allowed the black colored moths to thrive, despite otherwise being incredibly rare to the point of being unheard of, because they thrived in the unnatural environment where their naturally less beneficial camoflauge suddenly became an advantage.
Basically, the psychological tools, the instincts, that evolved within humans to ensure their surival in the wild are not adapted for life in an unnatural environment. You're trying to open a word document with notepad, and clearly when you do this, you will get an error, you will get nonsense in return.
This psychological evolution of empathy, of mutual psychological hallucinations to increase the liklihood of our own survival by means of increasing the survival of the collective, is the basis of morality, it is where we draw our sense of right and wrong, why we hate needless violence and why we enjoy compassion. These sorts of emotional reactions gave us a powerful advantage in the wild.
The issue is that we are no longer in the wild, but our minds, our instinct, still functions like we do.
When the tools we have can no longer do the job we need them to, when our world has changed so profoundly from the time when we were wild animals, this means we should no longer try to rely upon these anceint tools, but instead modernize them, in the same sense that we have done with every other aspect of ancient human soicety. The weel has come a long way, a very long way since ancient times.
Morality needs to experience this same progression of improvement and optimization through the scientific method. One may say morality has been improved since ancient times by philosophy, but philosophy is pre-science, it does not use the scientific method to prove it's points, and to use this system rather than the scientific method to determine what is good and what is bad is truly no different than trying to use alchemy to create medicine or cause chemical reactions, rather than actually using tested and proved chemistry that has been thoroughly studied via the scientific method.
I'm not a communist. I'm just a realist. Nothing about this is utopian, it's just realistic and objective. I would argue that philosophy and morality are far more utopian, thus fallacious, thus delusional, than my own arguments. That is unless one means to say that philosophy is truly a dystopian art form.
We could examine statistics; say which of two communities had the greater number of thefts, aasaults, rapes, murders and so on; but all that would show is which of the two had the stronger "moral fibre". (And this could also be skewed by one community having more effective law enforcement). We would still need to gauge the flourishing of the community, and I don't think that could be done in purely economic terms, because too many other factors might come into play, and wealth is not necessarily commensurate with happiness.
So, I am not sure what we could precisely measure to determine flourishing. But, to repeat, I do think any suitably observant and intelligent person familiar enough with two communities under consideration could gauge it well enough. This would still be a small sample size though and would have to be repeated with many communities to validate it, insofar as a subjective assessment of flourishing could be said to be objectively validated. The best way to achieve this would be to have many observers and see if their assessments correlated I guess.
Who will fund the study I wonder?
I'm not sure that's possible. Because I'm not sure that moral arguments have components that are capable of being reduced to numbers and/or raw measurements. Moral arguments comprise complex, interconnected, abstract concepts; these do not easily reduce in the way you suggest. :chin:
Universal acceptance isn't objective at any rate.
By the way, I'm still waiting for you to give an example of ontology that isn't making a factual claim (re objective facts) in your opinion.
There is none. The notion of an objective benefit is a category error.
No, that's not morality. That's a description of something which you judge to be moral. If you want to know what morality is, then consult a dictionary or an encyclopaedia.
Your point is good, but the issue I have with it is somehow arguing that morality is somehow related to happiness. The happiness of the people is part of the subjective experience, and this becomes irrelevant in real and practical matters.
Morality here is the force that allows societies to operate cohesively, and use this cohesiveness to consolidate the people and function as a collective that has power that correlates to the size and cohesion of that society.
I see morality as the driving force of civilization, in that morality is the "top gun" of human society, morality is that which wins wars and ensures the indefinite and perpetual survival of society.
Say there is an unhappy and angry society that still has a higher degree of social cohesion and more thus power as a collective than a happy society. They are happy but fragmented and individualistic. When these two things collide, when they fight, the unhappy society wins because they are more powerful. This would indicate that despite the unhappiness, the unhappy society is the more so moral of the two, because the objective results of their conflict resulted in victory for the unhappy society.
Morality is the force that causes societies to band together, empowers them, and ensures their survival. By my understanding, there is no real relationship between morality and happiness. If happiness arises due to morality, likely due to increased success and functionality within that society, this is just a coincidence, a side-effect, and not an indicator of functional morality. E.g. you can make people happy by destroying the economy, liquidating the entire economy and turning it into pure hedonism. These people are incredibly happy (for a short period of time), but clearly making them happy is by no means the moral decision here.
The reason why I argue in favor of accepting indefinite Net Yield as the indicator of the morality of an action is due to the fact that this doesn't need to be studied. We cna just calculate it given the data we already have. One can easily argue that increased net yield, as a society, correlates with increased social stability, cohesion, and power. As these are the relevant products of morality, this is why I draw that connection.
I think that the facticity of Ontology is somewhat absurd. Ontology speculates upon what Being is like. You can only ever glean certain things. You don't really ever arrive at any truths concerning Being.
So what's an example of something that you think isn't making a factual claim?
That's just immorality as defined by collectivism. The title of this discussion seems misleading. Is it a normative ethical discussion where you argue in favour of collectivism against individualism, or a meta-ethical discussion about objective morality vs. subjective morality?
This is the issue I have with morality. Humanity exists within an entirely finite universe, at least so far as we are concerned and can understand. Everything within this universe, everything within the planet earth, is inherently numerical, thus measurable, thus subject to formualtion and applied calculations.
Look at the progression of the planet. From unconcious rocks and other elements, to single-celled organisms, to complex life, to monkeys, to human life. Human life here is made entirely of those original, unconcious rocks and elements, all of these have been thoroughly proven to be entirely defined by quantifiable science such as chemistry and physics.
At what point during this progression did reality somehow escape the confines that it resides in? At what point did human life go beyond physical law? I argue never.
This is akin to lego bricks. You start out with individual lego bricks, all of which are easily measured and quantified. Regardless of what you create out of those lego bricks, this product will always be equally as quantifiable, measurable, and finite as the original lego bricks themselves. Even though human life is complicated, it is by no means an abberation from the laws of the natural world that define the existince we live in.
Philosophy has always operated without these laws, largely because originally they had no access to them. However, with the information we know have, the incredible and thorough study of the entire world around us, it seems irrational to argue that human life and human conciousness is somehow "Beyond science", that somehow there is a single aspect of human behavior, of human society, of human conciousness that cannot be explicitly and accurately quantified, studied, and explained via calculable equations in the same sense that every other aspect of this phsycial reality can be.
I'm not saying this is easy, but I am saying it is certainly possible, and there is no reason to avoid doing this, attempting to quantify morality, as well as any other relevant aspect of philosophy, in the same manner that every other aspect of this physical unverse has been defined, quantified, and expressed via formulic reasoning in accordance with the scientific method.
What counts as the flourishing or languishing of a community is far from objective, nor the only possible basis for objective morality. That's but one of many suggested. And there's nothing set in stone to say that the flourishing of a community is good and the languishing of it is bad, by the way.
It's fine if you personally want to advocate a community focussed ethics, but don't try to make out that it's something that it's not.
I had to look this word up, but I will explain with my limited understanding of this. Ontology, by my understanding, is separating things into groups and organizing them.
While this may be attributed to philosophy, while this may have roots in philosophy, this is not philosophy. It is just a system of organizing things. While you can have opinionated debates about ontology, this is truly just arguing in favor of which system of organization is most accurate and optimized.
Can an opinion about organization truly be wrong or inaccurate? No, but if you were to measure and compare these arguments about organization, then some would be calculably more so organized and ordered than the others.
Sorting things mathematically has been studied in detail. I would argue that mathematical sorting is just the evolution of ontology, it is ontology after the scientific method has applied, translated this once subjective and opinionated argument into a far more legitimate form.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_(mathematics)
For a simple example, think of order of operations. Is the order of operations truly subject to philosophical debates? It is just an agreed upon method of organizing and expressing something in a manner that attempts to be the most functional, applicable, and efficient.
This, ontology, is a good example, from my understanding of the topic, as something from philosophy that actually had the scientific method applied, that was actually formalized in a non-subjective manner, and is now used on a much more accurate and efficient manner than traditional ontology.
I did get distracted when I saw that post, and I sort of glanced over it, thinking I would come back to it, as it required some work with regards to semantics, truly apologize.
To state that a particular shade of red can never be adequately described is still making a factual claim, but the point of presenting such an argument is not to address what can be considered to be "fact". The intention is to suggest that there is an unintelligable infinite variance of color which can never be adequately described. An Ontological project may be primarily concerned with factual claims, but Ontology itself is not necessarily.
Wait, you're claiming that ontology isn't philosophy?
Just want to clarify if you're giving this of an example of something that's not a factual claim.
If there was no objective benefit to morality, than moral societies would not exist. They would be no more capable or powerful than amoral societies, and due to the excess effort it takes to maintain a moral society, morality would have fallen out of favor.
It would be seen as needless and pointless explicitly because morality produced no objective benefit, because a moral society was no better off than an amoral one. It would be like drinking snake oil every day, and reasonable people would quickly realize that drinking the snake oil does nothing and then subsequently stop doing that.
The benefit here, meaning an increase in some statistic, some aspect of society that functions at a measurably higher degree in a moral society than in an amoral society. Something like life expectancy, a higher life-expectanty would lead to higher yields, so long as people don't stay alive too long after they cease functioning. I would argue that a higher life expectancy is something that would be far more prevalent in highly moral societies than completely amoral societies.
First, whether any society is moral or amoral, assuming one thinks the idea of that even really makes sense, is a subjective judgment.
I'm saying that ontology is no more of a philosophy than math. It is the archaic method of attempting to create mathematical order when human society lacked the capacity to do so with hard and explicit evidence to justify their claims.
How much so is this plant related to this other plant? Let's argue about it, because we truly have no ability to prove ourselves one way or another due to our lack of knowledge within this area.
Is Taxonomy philosophy? I would argue no. My understanding of Ontology is that it is the ancient, pre-science form of taxonomy. Correct me if I'm wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy
I stated that it was a factual claim. My point was that Ontology is not necessarily concerned with factual claims even though it can be.
You understand that it's noncontroversially considered one of the main branches of philosophy, though?
Offhand I can't think of an ontological claim that wouldn't be a factual claim. Can you think of one?
The issue is that the common definition of morality relies explicitly upon entirely subjective and opinionated arguments. That has proven to be unacceptable in every other legitimate field that has ushered in this era of profound technological advancement.
My definition there, is what I would say that morality would be defined as if it were not convoluted with any arguments that are in any way dependent upon the subjective human experience and relied only on impartial, non-opinionated metrics to create that definition.
I would say the difference between "philosophical morality", and "scientific morality". Morality, if it were subject to the scientific method and defined by impartial and objective terms, rather than subjective, human-experience biased, and opinionated terms.
I'm arguing that the entire concept of philosophy is flawed and fallacious. If philosophy were legitimate it would be a science, you would be able to veritably and unquestionably prove your philosophical assertions via the scientific method.
Until you can actually prove these arguments, in the same sense as any other science, the legitimacy of philosophy is comparable to the legitimacy of divine beings, it is nothing more than human self-worship and egotism, arguing that the human consciousness is somehow a superior indicator of universal truth than the universe itself. That is nonsense and that is pure narcissistic delusion.
See the translation from ontology, sorting of things, into the far more legitimate, impartial, objective, and scientific field of Taxonomy.
Not really, but why does it matter?
No it doesn't. The broadest and most readily understood definition of morality is that it's what's right and wrong. That has no implications whatsoever of either objectivity or subjectivity, which would be a matter open to debate.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Well don't kid yourself. There's nothing impartial or objective about your definition.
Well, because it might be wrong to say it's not making factual claims. The very idea of that might not even make sense.
So intentionally post on a board dedicated to illegitimate human self-worship and egotism? That sounds like a plan.
I'm arguing that collectivism, by default, is the definition of morality. Morality allows multiple humans to function as a collective, this collective is more powerful than the individual. This is why moral societies were able to overpower any individual who sought to contest them.
Objective here, meaning, impartial, subject to nothing but the data, nothing but the correlation between the data, having no influence of human opinion or human sentiment. That's what I mean by objective.
To bring up ethics seems out of place, ethics, in this sense, is defined by the same manner as morality. The objective benefit of an ethical society, the measurable and quantifiable result that is produced by an ethical society, is once again this increased production, increased power, increased survival, and increased yield from said society.
I'm just looking at the quantifiable results from quantifiable actions. I'm arguing that these things like morality, and now ethics, can be quantified in a manner that explains them in a way that is entirely free from the subjective human experience such as feelings, ideals, opinions, sentiments, and sensations.
I argue that ethical and moral arguments should not be in any way dependent upon any sort of opinionation. The trajectory of a rock that you throw into the air is not subject to opinionation. Hopefully we can agree upon that.
A human being, essentially a meat rock that throws itself, made of the same chemicals as any rock, as any breeze, as any river. How is it that this combination of elements is somehow now "beyond science", this is like reorganizing a large set of finite numbers, yet somehow arriving to the conclusion that the result of this organization is infinite, beyond quantification, beyond science.
When the original set of numbers you have, the raw chemicals that comprise the human body, are all known to be explicitly and invariably quantifiable and finite, how is it that you can rearrange these chemicals, doing nothing more than simple addition, yet argue the result is somehow infinite? The commutative property and the associative property of addition clearly disprove this argument.
Okay, so it does make factual claims, but that they are factual need not necessarily be the focus of Ontology. I have a vaguely agnostic attitude towards the factual nature of claims made while practicing Ontology.
You do decide what you consider to be closest to the truth, but what is true can never be fully uncovered.
But it isn't. The default is what you can find in a dictionary, not your favoured normative stance in ethics.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
That's not objective morality, or even morality at all. That's just social science.
The moment that you begin to make any moral judgement, say, that the ideal society would be a productive society, and that that should therefore be a top priority, is the moment that you have entered the realm of ethics and of subjectivity.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
What the...? What are you talking about and how is any of that relevant?
I think you write way too much. Write less and stick to point.
https://philosophyterms.com/ontology/
Everything is made of atoms and energy (fair point, fairly accurate as far as we know)
Everything is made of consciousness (opinion)
You have a soul (opinion)
You have a mind (possible opinionated definition of mind. Does a rat have a mind? If not, then no, again opinion)
I looked these up. This is as far as my understanding of this field goes.
I'm saying that yes, while philosophy has made valid points, the legitimacy of philosophy is incredibly exaggerated. I am just arguing that philosophy is inferior to science with regards to actually having an argument. Meaning a philosophical point would always lose to a scientific point. I'm saying that worshiping philosophy, arguing that philosophy is somehow above, or even equal to science is delusion. Clearly it is not, if it were, then it would be proven by the scientific method, and thus become science, and at that point it would no longer be philosophy.
Philosophy is the seed of that which could be great science, but philosophers are incredibly reluctant to actually apply the scientific method to their own arguments, despite the fact that in many areas, such as morality, intensive, objective, empirical study would easily produce very meaningful results.
That's not an opinion, it's a factual claim.
I'm saying the default, objective, impartial, and empirical definition, call this definition 2, that I defend based upon what I can derive from human history. This what I am arguing in favor of.
As I previously said, the dictionary definition, definition 1, is riddled with dependence upon subjective and opinionated arguments, and this is why I deem that definition to be invalid.
I am arguing in favor of definition two, and arguing against definition 1. Definition two is the definition I am able to derive from analyzing and trying to deduce and impartial, objective, and empirical definition of morality.
Your "it" in your statement refers to a statement I made about definition 2, yet you are trying to argue this statement reflects my arguments about definition 1. The statement you made is false, just on simple logic alone.
I say Definition 3 of Turtle is "a bag of 7 rocks", then I say, "a turtle (definition 3), contains 7 rocks". You then argue "That's false, a turtle is an animal." According to the contextual definition, this turtle is a bag of rocks, despite the fact that the most commonly accepted definition of the word turtle is an animal. I'm not talking about the animal, I'm talking about the bag of rocks.
Really? You're arguing that a rock is a conscious entity?
con·scious·ness
/?kän(t)SH?sn?s/
Learn to pronounce
noun
noun: consciousness
1. the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings.
"she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later"
synonyms: awareness, wakefulness, alertness, responsiveness, sentience
"she failed to regain consciousness"
antonyms: unconsciousness
2. the awareness or perception of something by a person.
plural noun: consciousnesses
"her acute consciousness of Mike's presence"
synonyms: awareness of, knowledge of the existence of, alertness to, sensitivity to, realization of, cognizance of, mindfulness of, perception of, apprehension of, recognition of
"her acute consciousness of Luke's presence"
3. the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.
"consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain"
Which definition of consciousness does a rock have? I don't understand. Is there some philosophical definition of this word I am missing? Is a rock self aware now?
This has devolved into animism. Somehow animism is "fact" as opposed to a purely religious and spiritual claim?
It's also bonkers.
No one wants to languish, everyone wants to flourish. That is a fact of human nature. From that fact it follows that whatever individual and collective acts contribute to a community flourishing (in the sense of general emotional well-being) are moral and whatever individual and collective acts contribute to a community languishing (in the sense of general emotional dissatisfaction and suffering) are immoral. This is also indicated by the relationship between the terms 'moral' and 'morale'.
As an example, gambling is immoral on account of the suffering and social problems it causes. Murder, rape, theft, assault etc. are obviously immoral for the same reason.
This is getting boring. Just because you can string those adjectives together, that doesn't mean they actually apply.
It seems kind of mad or childish, like declaring that my left foot is the strongest, most pretty, slim, muscular, outstanding, beautiful, and mesmerising.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Alright, well have fun talking about a bag of rocks with other people, but I think it's stupid to define "turtle" that way.
It is beyond human nature. It is the nature of life, it is the entire purpose of being alive, the sole definition of life itself is to flourish competitively. The nature of life is just to flourish as much as possible. Every organism has this instinct, regardless of whether they are conscious or not, all life seeks to do is flourish to the greatest extent that it possibly can.
Life is essentially fire. It is the equivalent of biological fire, and it has the exact same principles that guide itself. Burn until it is impossible to burn anymore. Life spreads and consumes fuel in the exact same manner that fire does. Life exists for the exact same reason that fires come into existence, because there was potential fuel, and the flash point was reached. Once life had been ignited, it never stopped burning because it never ran out of fuel.
Even though life appears to be a closed system life still invariably reduces the potential energy of the system, in the exact same sense that fire does. It may burn at a slower rate, it may reduce potential energy within the system at a slower rate, but it is far more durable and far more capable of surviving than fire. Life exists purely because there was this potential energy that could be reduced, and it exists solely to reduce this potential energy, in the same sense that fire exists with the sole purpose of reducing combustible chemicals with high volatility into less volatile molecules with lower potential energy.
I agree with you that it goes beyond human nature, but I would say that the definition of life is to flourish cooperatively, not competitively. That's the basis of ecology. If a predator over-consumes resources, they may appear to flourish for a short while, but they will quickly die out when resources are over-utilized. So that would not be real flourishing at all. Same goes for the plutocrats.
You can't seem to follow my argument, that is why you are bored. That is unfortunate, but if you have no interest in rereading my argument thoroughly in an attempt to understand it, this is entirely your prerogative.
Clearly the relevance of the allegory has missed you completely. You did not understand that the statement was mean to represent your logic. You are essentially the one who is arguing that the turtle is a bag of rocks here, you are the one using the inapplicable definition as evidence to justify your argument.
Somehow you can't understand the adjectives to the point that they clearly apply and relate to my argument, but this is again entirely up to your own discretion. Whether or not you are willing to consider my point, or whether or not you simply want to antagonize me.
If you had read my argument, understood my argument, you would see that those adjectives very much so apply to the argument that I have consistently been making in this thread.
You argue that I am not "on topic", when in reality, even that statement about turtles and rocks was entirely on topic, as it was relevant to a rebuttal that was made.
Your ability to understand the topic, to put the pieces together, is completely independent from whether or not I am on topic. I would offer to explain whatever aspect of my argument that you, for whatever reason, did not understand, or did not see as relevant, but I figure you have little interest in arguing with me.
No, even if your premise is true, the conclusion doesn't follow, as a simple matter of logic.
Quoting Janus
An example of a moral judgement.
It may appear that way, but truly it is not cooperative at all. It is still just flourishing competitively, the reason it seems cooperative is because in order to flourish competitively over an indefinite period of time, you must manage your resources.
Similar to a business. Sure, a business could liquidate all of its assets in December and post a record high amount of revenue for that year, but that business is not truly competing at that point. Businesses may seem cooperative, but they truly are only interested in their own success, and if this means cooperating, they are more than willing to do this. Cooperation here is a means to an end, a means to flourish at the most competitive rate possible. Cooperation is no more relevant than its capacity to enable the cooperator to flourish competitively over an indefinite period of time.
What's funny is that you're both just wishful thinking. Apparently the definition of life is whatever you want it to be!
What nonsense, and Janus, you should know better. I don't know why you lose the good sense I know you're capable of when it comes to this topic.
Janus is pretty much correct on this topic. His definition reflects the actual reason as to why morality is respected any more than snake oil. It is the real results that validate morality, not any opinionated or idealistic interpretation of morality.
Belittling his argument or his personhood amounts to nothing. Justify your point, defend your stance, rebut his argument with more than a simple attack on his character.
The definition of life I provide reflects the reality in which all life exists, beyond that, the universe in which all physical matter exists. The definition of life I provide is in accordance with entropy, which itself defines and explains the universe we live in, everything that occurs within this universe occurs for the reason that it is in accordance with entropy.
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ce5620cfea144bfff9fe2daefad12835
No, I'm bored because you're getting repetitive, and because it seems like we're reaching a dead end with regards to how you're choosing to define your key terms.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Well that's clearly not the case, though. A turtle is an animal and morality is what's right and wrong. I'm not saying anything controversial in that regard. You are. You're presenting an obviously biased definition as impartial, and you seem to think that just calling it that is enough to make it so. Although, to be fair, you did attempt a rambling explanation, but that wouldn't fall under ethics, like I said. It would fall under something else, like social science. There was nothing there to make it about ethics.
I would defend your point that winners and losers are not the relevant aspect of the competition of life. The sole purpose is to flourish to the maximum extent, this has been the entire purpose, the entire reason for the physical existence of all life that has eventually given rise to our own species.
I see life as one large fire, multiple fires for every instance that life has been sparked elsewhere in the universe. The only purpose of life is to maximize the extent to which life reduces the potential energy of the universe over the lifespan of the universe, with no particular favoring of any species or individual.
The natural action would be to pursue this end and only this end, to ensure our own indefinite and perpetual survival to perform exactly the process that life naturally and spontaneously arose to do.
I even go so far as to argue that the more we stray from this natural definition of life, the less and less the human race can truly consider themselves life. When we stop pursing this natural goal, this maximization of the reduction of potential energy induced by life within the universe over the lifetime of the universe, we stop being life all together, we simply become death, we are no longer the righteous fire that was birthed from fuel, but smoldering ashes that failed to sustain the blaze.
The only reason i repeat things is because you fail to acknowledge my point. You fail to understand my point, so I attempt to explain it again.
As for my points not qualifying as philosophy, this is debatable. My points are about an opinionated interpretation of morality, which is so opinionated that you go so far as to call it biased. This is by definition philosophy, regardless of the fact that I defend my argument using empirical and objective reasoning. Surely, within philosophy, empirical reasoning is equally as valid in philosophy as subjective, empathetic, or ethereal reasoning.
The standard for philosophy is so low that it is nearly impossible for an argument about any related subject to fail to qualify as philosophy. The standard of philosophy is basically "What do you think about X?", and these are my thoughts, with relation to X. X in this case being morality.
It comes as no surprise that you would say that. You two seem almost like sock puppets.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
I have, and not for the first time. It usually follows a pattern of Janus making an unsubstantiated claim as though it were fact, and then I respond by pointing this out, and then he makes another such claim, and so on and so forth. And it's no different this time around.
Why would you expect me to grant a point I clearly disagree with, and why would you think that repeating it with more or less the same wording would help? That's not rational thinking.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
No, I just disagree with it. Repeating an explanation I've already criticised and rejected won't achieve anything except cause me some annoyance and make me lose interest.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
I didn't say that your points don't qualify as philosophy, I said that what you were describing in one of those points doesn't fall under the remit of ethics, as understood conventionally.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
You're right about there being a relatively low standard for what qualifies as philosophy, and this discussion of yours would be a good example. I would categorise it as a semantic discussion where you are offering your own idiosyncratic definition which consists of your own normative ethical views about the merits of collectivism, which you misleadingly call impartial and objective, apparently in a superficial attempt to bolster your position.
Oh, it's philosophy alright, but not good philosophy.
How does it follow? I'm struggling to even think of any definition of 'moral' which would cause this to follow, let alone a conventional one.
Why does an individual desire for flourishing have any normative impact on the requirement to cause the entire community to flourish? Unless you're defining 'moral' as something like "ensuring everyone has whatever you have", but that would be an extremely idiosyncratic definition to say the least. Where would it stop for a start? If I desire a horse is it then morally incumbent on me to provide the rest of the community a horse?
Yeah, this is something that I really can't understand about their tactics. We argue for positions which are personal moral evaluations all the time. It's a completely normal thing human activity. I just don't get why they seem to have this need to attach the label of objectivity to their positions. It's not like it actually works to lend it any authority. If overnight the definition of 'moral' were somehow fixed once and for all to mean "promoting community flourishing" all it would mean is that sometimes I'm immoral. It wouldn't change my behaviour.
A definition doesn't make me behave any differently, a convincing argument might.
Yeah, on that we agree.
Aside from knowing this isn't the case--I've known some very odd people, not everyone considers the same thing flourishing.
Sorry, I stopped reading after that. Not out of disinterest, but because I need you to clarify this before I can continue understanding what you wrote. I can't see how everything - absolutely everything - is "inherently numerical". It's not that I doubt what you wrote, it's that I don't understand what you wrote. Can you explain, for the benefit of this senile and baffled philosopher? :chin:
Perhaps the intention is to suggest that there are things that we can experience, but not describe? In this case we wouldn't be implying that there is something that cannot be approached or understood, but only that this thing cannot be described. Does that make sense? :chin:
If the sun carries on rising every day, the snake oil is working, isn't it? :wink: And if everybody takes the snake oil, every day, no-one will be able to deduce it's doing nothing, will they? :wink:
And another thing. What if morality is not a policy considered and adopted by societies, but is an emergent property of societies that just appears? The way you put it, you expect evolution to get rid of it if it does nothing. But there are many attributes that have no critical survival value, so they are not selected for or against. Maybe morality is such a thing? :chin:
So, to paraphrase, philosophy is crap because it isn't science, and only science can be not-crap? Is that about it?
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
You're really serious about his, aren't you? You do realise this is sciencism? Possibly eXtreme Sciencism? [XS] Objective correctness gone mad? Joking aside, let's be clear: you're arguing that science is the One and Only Tool acceptable for use in the examination of Life, the Universe and Everything? And that philosophy has been wholly superseded by science?
You're not understanding the comment or the idea that the comment is about.
I'm not arguing that "Everything is made of consciousness" is true. I'm saying that it's not an opinion, it's a factual claim. "Factual claim" doesn't mean that the claim is necessarily a fact or that it's true. It refers to a claim made about a fact. A claim made about a fact can (turn out to) be incorrect.
For example, "Eels don't reproduce. They spontaneously generate from the mud." That's a claim about a fact. It's asserting something about what the world is like, how the world works. It's wrong, of course, but that's irrelevant. It's a claim about facts.
You might be misreading "factual claim" as "a claim that is a fact; a claim that is true."
"Factual claim" instead refers to "a claim about a fact; a claim that posits what the world is like; how the world works." Many, maybe most (and maybe the vast majority of) factual claims are false.
That's not even close to the actual definitions of life being proposed by biologists.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
What is the evidence of that?Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Literally in the exact same manner?
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Purpose to whom?
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
What is a "natural action"? How do we establish what is natural?
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
And just why should we care about being life according to your definition of it?
Yes, but, according to @Terrapin Station, I am sure that you are still making "factual claims".
I'm not following you on this one. Are you saying that facts can be false?
The very idea of being moral is conceptually based on the idea of benefiting others, and the idea of being immoral is based on the idea of harming others. Again I don't mean to claim this is some kind of "empirical fact", but just that it is the most coherent logic of morality.
When I say that everyone wants to flourish and no one wants to languish, I don't mean that absolutely everyone wants to flourish; I realize that some people are fucked up and that maybe they, or at least some perverse part of them, would rather languish and die instead of living and flourishing. But I see such attitudes as dysfunctional, dis-eased; in need of correction, if possible. Animals do not suffer from such dysfunctions and diseases as far as I am aware, at least not until they are physically sick or very old and do not have the energy for life anymore.
Factual claim = a claim about a fact.
Facts are states of affairs. Ways that the world happens to be.
You can get wrong how the world happens to be. So a factual claim can be wrong.
OK. I understand what you're saying - we're on the same page there. I just find the wording a bit confusing. Maybe it's just me, but I find this a bit clearer - if a bit more wordy
Factual claim = a claim about a possible fact.
fact (fækt)
n
1. an event or thing known to have happened or existed
2. a truth verifiable from experience or observation
3. a piece of information: get me all the facts of this case.
4. (Law) law (often plural) an actual event, happening, etc, as distinguished from its legal consequences. Questions of fact are decided by the jury, questions of law by the court or judge
5. (Philosophy) philosophy a proposition that may be either true or false, as contrasted with an evaluative statement
6. (Law) after the fact criminal law after the commission of the offence: an accessory after the fact.
7. (Law) before the fact criminal law before the commission of the offence
8. as a matter of fact in fact in point of fact in reality or actuality
9. fact of life an inescapable truth, esp an unpleasant one
10. the fact of the matter the truth
From here: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/fact
Ok. Logically, life has a definition. It is a finite noun, it has an explicit definition. I argue thay my definition is fairly accurate and functionally accurate, that's all I'm doing
I argue that my points are very well founded and the explanations I provide justify the definitions I use. Disagree all you want..
You claim that this is an argument about collectivism, it's not. It's an argument about the definition of civilization and morality, it is pure coincidence that the definition I am able to derived from history is one that is similar to collectivism. The point here is not for me to defend collectivism, the point is for my to defend my reasoning and metrics from which I am able to derive the objective definition of morality.
Perhaps my points seem as empty and meaningless to you as yours do to me, but I never feel that you fully and in detail rebut my argument with actual points. It's a large amount of criticism, but no counter point. You can criticize a point all you like, but if you don't provide a superior and more so legitimate argument, your criticism is pointless.
Meaning you try to condemn the points without fully justifying your condemnation, at least in my eyes. You're calling me a criminal, without providing a thorough explanation of the evidence at hand that proves I'm a criminal. If you don't explain your point fully, it becomes harder to understand what you are trying to say. I believe you think there is some degree of shared thought process here, so you leave out parts of your argument, choosing not to write them out, just because you think "My thoughts are common sense, everyone will have these thoughts, there's no reason for me to explain in detail."
My issue with your argumentative style is that your counterpoints are minuscule when compared to your criticism. The criticism here is not the relevant aspect of having a debate, the only relevant part is the counter points.
The point about providing a hard, quantifiable definition is that it allows for an actual functional system to emerge, an actual system that provides actual answers to questions.
Think of measuring length. The current standard in philosophy is to use non quantifiable length, saying, you define a length of wood as 'Oh so wide', 'about this wide', 'fairly wide', 'a bit short', rather than using explicit countable measurements.
How can philosophy defend its complete aversion to utilizing quantifiable metrics and statistics to define and defend their arguments, when no other field of study is comparably as reluctant to do so?
What advantage is there to describing a kilogram as a 'fairly heavy amount', rather than describing it as a very quantified amount known as the kilogram?
In my eyes it just makes arguments pointless, because they can never be proven or justified in any manner beyond opinionated and subjective explanation. There's never an argument that just says, the data and statistics that have been measured reflect this conclusion, despite the fact that this empirical explanation is the only form of legitimate explanation in every other field with the exception of pure art, which like philosophy, leaves validity and legitimacy entirely up to the authority of human opinion.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Quoting Pattern-chaser
I'll try explain. Logically, you have one egg, you keep counting eggs. You keep counting eggs forever, do you ever get to a number that is not a countable number? Basically, once you start to count things, you can tell that everything is countable.
If you are counting whole single digits, you will never get to a quantity that is infinite, meaning adding and subtracting a number doesn't change the quantity. When nothing is infinite, everything is then finite, and everything finite is quantifiable, it is a quantity, this can be represented as a number.
The only infinite aspects of the universe are infinitesimal, meaning the amount of numbers between 1 and 2, is infinite, because the differences can be infinitely small.
This lack of infinite quantities means that essentially everything can be measured. When everything can be measured, this means it can be quantified and expressed in regards as numbers.
Think of a rock falling from a person's hand towards the ground. This may not seem numerical, but even if it does not naturally appear this way, we can still represent and describe it numerically.
Things like the law of gravity are closer to representations of what happen, describing things rather than counting them, but in the sense that these numerical descriptions can be created with regards to any finite and measurable occurrence, and since the lack of infinite values in the universe suggests that everything is finite, then this set of conditions means that everything can be quantified, defined and represented in mathematical ways.
Even though we don't have to count the gravity, we can still represent what is happening with numbers, variables, and other forms of mathematics. Our ability to do this, to understand these things in this manner allows us to take advantage of these forces behaving so reliably.
Even the human mind, has a finite number of neurons, approx 100 billion. When you start out with a finite number, and you keep adding or multiplying by other finite numbers, you will never arrive at a number that is infinite, you will always have a finite quantity.
Even if you combine every possible combination of neuron firing, and every other aspect of the human body, as these are all finite numbers, they can all be subejcted to explanation by the same style of measurements and explanation that has given us this working standard of gravity.
While a human being is more complex than a rock, time, the mass of the planet, air resistance, and the other elements that were quantified in order to develop the law of gravitiy, this does not mean that humans are any less defined by this sort of natural law as a rock is. Just as the fall of a rock is determined by the law of gravity, ever aspect of human life is determined by some equivalent and parallel law that defines how humans behave in any sort of situation.
While clearly we don't have these equations, they are not needed to prove this.
The human exists in the same system as rocks and water, rocks and water are all inherently finite, and can be quantified, measured, and represented using equations and entirely mathematical models, free from any influence of subjective force such as opinion or sentiment.
The human is made up entirely of rocks and water (more so, chemical compounds, but this is semantics), even though these rocks and water are mixed in a very specific way that produces a very specific result that is very complicated, the fact that the base parts, Part A and Part B are finite, means there is no possible way you can Add Part A to Part B and get a result that is not finite. Basically there is no way to create an infinite quantity from two finite quantities, and as humans are composed of these two finite quantities, this implies that any combination of these two quantities will be as equally as finite as the two quantities that are being combined.
Logically, as rocks and water are both proven to be defined explicitly and entirely by natural law, then this implies that any combination of rocks and water, any combination of any amount of chemical compounds, will too be defined explicitly and entirely by natural law in the same respect.
The issue here, is that humans are far more complex than rocks or water. This means that the natural laws that define the human race would be proportionally more so complex than the natural laws that define rocks. Similar to how The user manual for a car is much larger than the user manual for a knife.
Even though they are very complex equations if represented perfectly, we can deduce by what we already know to be true about the natural world, that every aspect of human life is as equally definable by natural law in the same respect that every aspect of water or rocks can be defined and explained with natural law.
The key thing to realize is that even having rough approximations of these equations that define our lives is going to be invaluable. We can have a fairly clear estimation of what the answer to these equations is, even if we don't have pinpoint accuracy. The more accurate these equations become, the easier we will be able to exclude and disprove arguments that deviate from quantifiable correctness.
If you are calculating the sqrt(3), square root, you can never have the correct answer, because that is infinitely long, it is infinitesimal, but you can have an answer that is close enough. Based upon rounding.
If you have the answer of 2, then your inaccuracy is ~ 14%
If you have 1.7, now your answer is only about ~2% different from the actual, correct, infinitely long answer
At 1.73, your are 0.1% inaccurate
At 1.732 you are 0.002% inaccurate
Even though it is impossible to be 100% accurate here, you can get the inaccuracy down small enough to the point where it becomes inconsequential. The same thing applies here, where so long as we know we are fairly close to the answer, we can gain quality answers from these equations.
I believe that Terrapin & I are using the word "fact" as it functions in the context of the Correspondence theory of truth. I do not pretend to be an expert in these matters, but as I understand it, in Correspondence Theory the word "fact" is synonymous with "state of affairs", "existence", "reality", etc. Statements/propositions are true or false in so far as they accurately describe facts.
So definition #5 Quoting Janus is wrong - at least in this context. True propositions describe facts ((wikipedia uses the term structural isomorphism), but the word "fact" and the word "proposition" have very different definitions.
Terrapin, please correct me if I have misrepresented your position.
Quoting Pattern-chaser
As for the sun rising, well, the sun isn't the one drinking the snake oil, is it?
As for this quote though. You might think that morality is not selected for or against, but having an instinctive understanding of morality, having a "moral compass" so to speak, is something nearly all people are born with. If it was not selected for or against, then it would not be so prevalent, found in 99% of the people.
In order for 99% of people to have this trait, this means an instinctive understanding of morality is inherently favored in terms of reproduction in the wild, when compared to a complete lack of morality, such as psychopathy. This could be a more recent development, where instinctive empathy and psychopathy were toe to toe in the wild, but in a civilized world, the people themselves exterminated psychopathic individuals because they were not able to function in society.
By one means or another, instinctive empathy and sympathy, the basis of morality, is found in 99% of all people, and this strongly suggests that it was a highly favorable trait to have, while lacking it caused one to be far less likely to survive. Especially since this instinctive empathy/sympathy is found in much less civilized and intelligent animals like dogs and likely even far simpler animals, this sort of instinct has been present in all animals for millions of years, and over the course of this period of time, the existence of animals, this instinct has proven to be more beneficial than the absence of this instinctive empathy, at least with regards to our species, and this is why it got passed down so thoroughly.
Quoting Pattern-chaser
No, I'm saying philosophy is not reliable method of deriving truth because it deviates from the scientific method.
Philosophy needs to produce arguments from experiments that can be independently and objectively verified in order to be legitimate.
"The scientific method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century. It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings. These are principles of the scientific method, as distinguished from a definitive series of steps applicable to all scientific enterprises."
Basically, without this process, you have no quality control. You have nothing that objectively proves or disproves your argument. You cannot be correct beyond popular opinon, beyond a subjective defense, and this is the issue.
Philosophy needs to be true in a manner that when all people perform a philosophical experiment, they all are able to measure the result and derive the exact same conclusion. Like when people do a scientific experiment, anywhere in the world, if they do it correctly, they will all come to the same result, and this universal, replicable, objective, and impartial correctness is something that needs to exist in order for philosophy to be comparably as legitimate as science.
When correctness is a matter of opinion, then it's hardly as valid as correctness which is unquestionable, right?
I'm not meaning to be insulting, it's just I'm a "no bullshit" sort of person, like a machine, just work, just mechanical operation, no flavor, no bullshit.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's just not the functional definition of that word in the modern world. If somebody makes a "factual statement", they make a statement that is true. Somebody makes a "conjecture or assertion regarding the factuality of a claim", that is something different altogether.
At this point, by your logic, how do opinions exist? Are all opinions factual statements? "Guns are bad", "Guns should be controlled", "Gay marriage is a good thing", or any other political opinion is the referred to as a factual statement?
Quoting Echarmion
1. This is the definition of "life", that I got.
The condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
The point being, without flourishing competitively, you cannot be any of these things, because you don't exist. Competitively meaning, enough to compete, enough to win. If you don't win, you lose, you are dead, thus you are not life, not alive, but rather death, a dead thing.
Quoting Echarmion
2. If an organisim did not have the will to live, if it has no chemical reaction that causes it to perpetuate itself, then it would not exist. Perhaps we have a different understanding of flourishing here.
Even just an amoeba in a petri dish is flourishing. You look at cell growth in a petri dish, this is what I define as floursihing. Things growing until they cannot grow any more. Exactly why a petri dish will become full of cells when you incubate it. Cells are not concious, but they still do this, they just grow and reproduce until they cannot do so anymore. All life is esentially defined by this strategy, this action is the backbone of all life, complex life has just refined it, but even then they do not change much from the original single-celled strategy.
Quoting Echarmion
Yes. The exact same manner. Think of the petri dish again. Those cells will grow, spread, keep on growing until they cannot, until there is no longer and food for them to consume. When that cell culture runs out of fuel, it dies. This growth is for life is identical to that of a fire. The fire grows until it cannot find any more fuel to burn. Life, in its simplest form, grows like a fire until it cannot find any more fuel to burn.
They look different, but they behave in very, very similar ways. The chemical processes very similar as well.
Fuel + O2 ? CO2 + H2O -> This is fire, burning sticks
C6H12O6(sugar)+6O2?6CO2+6H2O -> This is what is happening in your cells, this is cellular respiration, it is what causes you to turn food into energy. This is what keeps you warm, this is the process that keeps cells alive.
Notice they are identical? Cellular life is basically just a very complex fire that uses sugar as fuel.
Quoting Echarmion
Purpose, not to anyone at all. Just the reason as to why it exists, not that there is any real intent or meaning behind that. Meaning, basically "This is what caused life to exist, and while life may do other things, this purpose was the only justification that ushered lie into existence."
It's the same purpose/reason as fire. It just exists because it can, because it is in accordance with entropy. I'm tired, plus ran out of cigarettes. I'm falling off, truly wish I could explain better, press me on this.
Quoting Echarmion
A natural action meaning that which arises without any intent, without any thought, without any convolution. Everything that is unconscious in the universe is natural action. The actions that cells perform are all natural actions. The cells have no ability to question themselves or influence their actions. The same can be said about most sorts of natural life. One would have to consciously make an effort to stray from the natural processes that have come to define life, in order to be unnatural.
Basically it is any conscious decision that an individual makes, which is difference from the unconscious decision that would have been made if your body had remained entirely unconscious but retained it's ability to survive and reproduce indefinitely, in the same respect that a single-celled organism does.
Even with human life, one would have to take into account the capacity of unconscious intelligence, pursuing survival using opposable thumbs and intelligence, without being conscious of one's own existence. Here, consciousness is not the same as intelligence. Think about, you can be blackout drunk, unaware of your own existence, but still be holding conversations. You would still be able to wield intelligence even if you have no control of your body or awareness of your own existence.
Quoting Echarmion
As for my definition. I try to justify my definition with evidence. I think the arguments I provide, see the chemical equations, the natural tendency of the universe, the parallels that are found across all life forms, the parallels between life and fire, are all sound arguments to base a point from. As life and fire are very similar in form and function, if humans are to stray from this path, trailblazed by fire, reinforced by life, then how can we consider ourselves to be life, to be fire, when we stray from the only path that our progenitors had ever tread upon?
I'm going to bed. This was good. The questions were good. Hopefully I can get back to this some more tomorrow. Let me know if this makes sense. =)
https://civilizationemerging.com/future-thinkers-podcast-solving-the-generator-functions-of-existential-risks/
Communist-like morality.
Yes, but only definitional answers not normative ones. If you define morality as "maximising personal pleasure at the expense of others" that makes clear what is moral and what is not too. It just means that several community benefit actions I take are now defined as immoral. So what?
The thing about measuring is that it has no normative force. To say a shed is 2m tall is to say just that. Not that all things should be 2m tall, or that all things should be the same height as a shed.
If we could agree on what behaviours constitute "moral" we would have ourselves a measure. But if we could agree on that, we wouldn't need a measure.
Why would you say that morality is based on flourishing when all you really mean is that you think that it would be useful to think about morality in terms of flourishing? There's a world of difference between those two statements. Are you just really bad at expressing yourself?
Quoting Janus
No, it isn't. That just shows that you aren't thinking about this impartially.
In addition to what S has already asked about the statement he quotes, I'd also like to know - useful to what ends? Use must have a purpose, nothing is just universally useful, things are useful to achieve certain tasks (and by turns useless at achieving others).
So if you consider such a measure useful, you must have some objective in mind to which use it is put. That objective cannot be merely clarity of definition - as I said above, any definition at all if universally adopted would yield such clarity. It cannot be human flourishing - obviously that would make your argument beg the question. So what is the objective, to which this definition is of "use"?
Logically? Look, words have definitions, and the word, "life", has a definition, and an acceptable definition can be found in the dictionary.
I'm not going to accept your own made-up definitions.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
You're delusional. You're also trying to reinvent the wheel, which is a foolish endeavour.
Maybe folks are thinking that "factual" is an adjective that modifies "claim" in the sense of saying that the claim is a fact. But that's not the case. The claim is about a fact, whether the claim is true or false. So with "Philadelphia is south of Boston," for example, that sentence is not a fact*, that sentence is about a fact.
(*The sentence actually is a fact in the sense that we could say, "Terrapin Station wrote 'Philadelphia is south of Boston,'" but that's the same sense in which "Philadelphia is north of Boston" is a fact in the sense that we could say, "Terrapin Station wrote 'Philadelphia is north of Boston'." In other words, saying that those are facts is saying that there's a state of affairs that amounts to those sentences being written.)
Right, that's what I was just explaining. The fact isn't the proposition itself (aside from the fact that the proposition was stated), the fact is what the proposition is making a claim about.
Normative ethics and semantics are two different branches of philosophy. Is it not ridiculous for ethical altruists to be claiming that the meaning of "moral" is to be of benefit to others? If you want to argue in favour of altruism, then go ahead and do so. No one is stopping you. If that's what you, personally, judge to be moral, then so be it. But words already have meanings, and you don't get to just make them whatever you want, otherwise you might as well be talking to yourself.
Opinions are evaluative. They tell us how someone feels about something. "Marmalade tastes great." "Stravinsky is a better composer than Haydn." "Maine is beautiful in autumn." Etc.
Your examples are all opinions: ""Guns are bad", "Guns should be controlled", "Gay marriage is a good thing",
And moral stances are all opinions.
Hear hear.
Consider the difference between "less" and "fewer": There are fewer cows in the field, so there is less milk. The concept of countability is this basic. Cows are countable; milk is not.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
No we can't. We can develop and assign numbers to something like a falling rock. These numbers might predict the rate at which the rock falls, but that's as far as it goes. There is much more to be included before we can say that our words "represent and describe" it.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
That's an assumption, not the conclusion of a logical thought process, or at least not one that you've offered in this discussion.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Ah, so the only reliable method that exists for "deriving truth" is the scientific method? :chin:
Not that I agree with the math fetishism he's espousing, but why wouldn't he just say that there's n liters of milk?
Yeah, I don't know why he used "theoretically" either.
I've seen much worse.
Because I think that the idea of good and bad moral action, the inherent logic of it, if you like, is based on the idea of benefit vs harm, i.e. flourishing vs languishing. I shouldn't have to keep repeating this.
Ok. This is an incredibly loose standard of morality. While you can argue that everything that falls under this category is morality, I would disagree.
Look at the Canaanites. These people, as a culture, would sacrifice their children to Moloch. They, as a community, believe that child sacrifice was a good thing, so they did it. By the standard you describe, child sacrifice is moral, so long as the community agrees to this and enforces this law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch
I argue that there is a difference between law/standard/culture based behavior and morality. Morality, the way would define it, is something that is always beneficial to the society. The society will always benefit from a moral action, but just because something is agreed upon by a culture, society, or family doesn't mean that this action is in any way a moral action.
Not at all, because CS is in this culture, not the Moloch. So by the standard he describes child sacrifice is immoral because we think that it is immoral.
The "so what?" is exactly what I am trying to get at here.
If we have this system, quantified and calculable, the same "so what?" that would be created by this system can already be seen in science.
Though, yes, everyone can agree that a rock thrown into the air will fall down to earth, so why would we need to define this, empirically, with calculable equaitons, when we can already agree that the rock will fall down, when we don't need equations to come to this conclusion?
The thing is that calculable equations provide extreme degrees of clarity, and beyond that they can be utilized in a manner that provides a great degree of value.
With physics, say, the Chinese knew for thousands of years that you could make fireworks. You could use gunpowder to propel explosives into the air, at which point they explode. The advantage of physics allowed people to turn this general understanding of the world into very explicit and useful knowledge. We can now create missiles that fly into the air and land at the exact location you want them to.
It is this complete mastery and understanding of a topic, to the point where we can calculate and know exactly how things are going to work, this allows us to make much more precise and accurate decisions.
It's the difference between old-fashioned fireworks/rocket launchers, which were used as a weapon, such as the Hwacha, and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha
There is a clear ability to gain incredible degrees of success which were previously unimaginable by applying the scientific method to things.
This is the difference we would experience in society. No longer using the equivalent of the Hwatcha as the epitome of morality, but using instead the intercontinental ballistic missiles of morality. Think of the value that morality has brought to society, this is the Hwatcha. Think of the difference between an ICBM and a Hwatcha, this is the difference between traditional non-quantified morality and quantified/objecitve morality.
Quoting S
Ok. My definition is in explicit accordance with the definition in the dictionary. Beyond that, when you logically produce a definition of something, when you do this accurately, then said definition is an accurate and legitimate definition of that word.
Why would the definition of something be anything other than the logical definition of that something? Why would something be defined in a manner that cannot be explicitly reproduced using logic?
"Quoting S
I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel at all. I'm trying to argue that the scientific method should be applied to process of making wheels. I'm trying to improve upon the process from which wheels are made, using a systematic approach that has been explicitly proven to function.
The wheel has been improved greatly by the scientific method. There is no reason that morality should not be subjected to the same system of improvement.
To say that this is reinventing the wheel is to say "All wheels must be made of wood or stone, this is how wheels have always been made, if a wheel is not made of wood or stone it is not a wheel at all."
If this were the case, then all wheels would still be made of wood and stone, when in reality very few wheels are made of wood or stone today. Philosophy here is this wood/stone wheel. I am arguing that the utilizing the scientific method to define, refine, and improve morality would produce a much higher quality product, a better and far more functional form of morality. It's hard to have a car with wooden wheels, and the same can be said about using traditional/non-scientific morality to govern our society.
My argument is that simple. "Apply the scientific method to morality in order to study, formalize, refine, and improve our understanding and ability to utilize morality."
I'm not arguing in favor of altruism. I'm not arguing in favor of anyone doing anything to hurt themselves for the sake of others. I'm arguing in favor of morality.
Here is my reasoning. Originally, there were only individuals. Then people formed groups. The groups are always more powerful than the individual, this is why the groups came to dominate.
My definition of morality is "That which holds the groups together, thus enabling them to dominate the individual."
Once an individual is part of a collective, they are no longer an individual, they are a part of that collective, and they cannot exist without the collective so they are not an individual. The collective is the individual, as you cannot divide off the people without destroying the collective.
I am just arguing in favor of success, regardless of what you want to call it. The power of the collective has proven to dominate the world, and this is why i defend it. Unless every society in the history of the world is a "collectivist altruistic society", then this is not altruistic collectivism. Sure, they may be similar, but they are not the same.
By being a part of society, you sacrifice your individuality, you are no longer a person, the only "person" here is society, you cannot exist without society and thus you are not an individual, you cannot be divided from society and retain any legitimacy of your own existence. That is why your own desires are disregarded if they conflict with the well-being of your collective.
As for "words have meanings", look at it like this.
The "meanings" of words are agreed upon, but that does not mean they are accurate. If somebody tells you the definition of a rock is "A hard immobile object created when God created the world 6000 years ago", this is a functional definition of the word, and many people agreed to it over the course of the history of the West, but just because people can agree upon a definition does not make it accurate.
I use logic to produce the definitions of the words I produce. Logically, if my definitions are different than the agreed upon definitions, I would argue that the logically correct definitions are more so valid than ones that are simply agreed upon. People can agree upon false definitions, and logic would argue that these definitions are false.
Your argument that "words already have meanings, you can't make them up", is essentially "The Bible says this is true. If you disagree with the Bible you are wrong."
I try to produce accurate definitions, and I would argue that my own are more so valid and justified by the world at large, simply due to providing actual quantifiable and objective evidence to support my definitions, than any sort of semantic argument based upon popular accord or otherwise subjective and baseless metrics.
You can count volume of milk with liters? You can even count/approximate the individual number of atoms in that liter of milk if you really wanted to.
Quoting Pattern-chaser
The numbers do represent and describe the falling of the rock, you can use numbers to represent any aspect of that situaiton you want, the location, the time, the space, the density. The point is not that I have fully described the falling of that rock, it is that numbers can explictly be used to desrcibe every facet of that rock falling to the ground. These things can all be quantified, that's all that I'm saying. What part of a rock falling can't be quantified?
Quoting Pattern-chaser
That's just how evolution works. If you put pressure against a trait, that trait becomes less prevalent. If you put pressure in favor of a trait, that trait becomes more common. This is why all Europeans had light skin, to increase the amount of vitamin D they received from the sun. This is why black people have dark skin, to protect them from being burned by the sun.
If there was no selective pressure here, then those traits would not be as prevalent. Meaning black skin would be just as prevalent in Europe as white skin, meaning white skin would be just as prevalent in Africa. The reason that things become uniform across a population is because selective pressure has pressured any sort of alternatives out, alternatives cannot compete with the most competitive form, and thus the most competitive form of the trait becomes universal within that population.
Empathy/sympathy here was selected in favor of, in many forms of complex life, just like how white skin was selected in favor of in Europe. It was selected in favor of because it increased the liklihood of survival when compared to its absence, just like how dark skin increased the rate of survival in Africa when compared to the absence of dark skin.
Quoting Pattern-chaser
Yes. Truth here meaning the subject is no longer subject to debate, that the accepted truth is proven to be universal and effectively unquestionable. Think of the difference between the unquestionable validity of physics when compared to philosophy.
It is much, much harder, and easily impossible in many cases, to question and argue against commonly accepted and thoroughly proven arguments made with physics, whereas with philosophy it is incredibly to do this, because there is no need to produce any sort of reproducible empirical result that can be objectively validated by anyone.
It's the difference between "This experiment proves that my argument is correct, with objective, impartial data that justifies my argument." and effectively "I say I am right. I am right because I say I'm right."
What I am arguing is no more "math fetishism" than any other science. Do you describe physics and chemistry as "math fetishism"?
People don't use math to explain these sciences because of some perverse sexual arousal that comes from math. They use math to explain these things because math has consistently proven to be a far more applicable method of explaining and legitimizing an argument than a non-mathematical argument.
It's because this is a fact. This is why I say these things. You live in an explicitly finite world, there is nothing that exists within it that is not finite. All finite things can be counted. It's simple logic.
I use this term because subjecting every other facet of this explicitly finite world to scrutinous scientific formalization has provided incredible benefit to society. I'm basically just saying "Science has proven itself to be valuable, philosophy should not turn their nose up at the scientific method considering the benefit it has produced in countless other fields."
As for using "theoretically" I use words like this in order to explain that I am not some infallible source of correctness. This is called creating a hypothesis, and then the next step is to actually perform experiments, collect data, and formulate an argument based upon the data that is derived.
Quoting Isaac
But in their society, in the Canaanite society, Child Sacrifice was a moral action? That's what I'm trying to get at. Regardless of our own society, within the Canaanite society alone, it would be considered a moral action?
It is no coincidence that a variety of cultures independently developed the "golden rule".
That doesn't follow from what I wrote. That is morality. That follows. You're conflating moral judgment that is based upon one's morality with morality.
Yes, presumably.
Some things exist in their entirety prior to the very first report/account of them.
Infinity is an idea, not a physical thing. Just like seven is an idea, not a physical thing. Neither infinity nor seven exist, unless we count ideas as existing, as you do not. :chin:
Of course I'd counter that ideas are physical things.
I wouldn't say that "benefit" is the same thing as "flourishing."
A benefit of x is anything that S (some subject) desires that's provided by or that's an upshot of x.
Flourishing has a connotation of a sustained desired state.
Things that S considers a benefit might not actually be things that would lead to a sustained desired stste for S. S might even desire things that would be harmful in S's view if sustained.
They're subsets of brain states.
Pay attention, please.
Are you ever going to answer what I was asking you in the hate speech thread, by the way?
What about ideas: not felt, not imagined, not pondered, not spoken, not heard; lone, floating somewhere, somehow?
Huh? There are no such things. Brain states have electrochemical properties. Ideas are something people are aware of insofar as they occur. They're not "floating alone somewhere."
What a great question (s) and debate! I hate to ask this somewhat rhetorical question but after reading some of your analysis; what is the human phenomena called Love? Is it subjective, objective, or a little of both (?). And if you believe it's both, in the spirit of ethics and/or morality, how should we exclusively parse that in your mind?
I apologize again in advance for that question however I'm just trying to understand your argument in favor of objective exclusivity... .
Probably.
Why would you figure that there are ideas no one is aware of?
I didn't say that benefit is the same as flourishing. As a general rule, beneficial actions lead to flourishing, harmful actions lead to languishing. Of course people can flourish in adversity and languish in succour; but that is not a moral issue. Flourishing is the state that generally ensues when sustained benefits are enjoyed. Languishing is the state which generally ensues when sustained harms are suffered. I say "generally" because, remember we are talking about communities in which outcomes are averaged out.
I know what you think, but if you worded yourself better to begin with, then you could likely avoid these kind of objections, and then you wouldn't have to keep clarifying in response.
And also that's different to what you said earlier, which was about benefit or harm to others, or of a community, rather than benefit or harm generally.
You said that the sole definition of life is to flourish competitively. That's not true, and that's not to be found in any dictionary definition. That's just what you imagine the purpose of life to be. The world "definition" was the wrong word to use.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
That's all well and good in theory. Apply the scientific method, you say, as though it were that simple.
Then why define morality in accordance with altruism, as you did in your opening post? That is to argue in favour of altruism. You're not making any sense.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
But this is the problem. I don't accept that definition. That could be used to describe a whole number of things. So you'll just be talking about something else and calling it morality. Why don't you just make your point without trying to redefine morality? That's not a feasible approach.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
But that's nonsense. Of course I'm an individual, and whether I'm part of a collective or dependent on the collective for survival is logically irrelevant.
This is a wonderful thing to think about. Yes, every culture developed "the golden rule", and I would argue that this is empirical in the exact same sense that every culture was able to come to same conclusions about basic addition, that 2+2 = 4, wherever you go, everybody could agree upon that.
This widespread independent result from attempting to understand morality suggest that morality is actually something quantifiable, something defined in a very hard, measurable, calculable, and logical way. The fact that people could independently verify the legitimacy of the golden rule just speaks to the extent that morality is not entirely subjective or entirely up to opinion. All of these societies realized that a standard such as the golden rule is incredibly beneficial to society, so they all implement this rule universally and independently.
The fact that common sense among ancient cultures produced the same universal replicability that the scientific method is able to create with regards to science speaks to how there truly is a legititmate and correct version of morality, one that is not subject to opinion. Just like all cultures could agree on basic addition, all cultures could agree on the golden rule. I'm just arguing that morality should be formalized in the same manner that allowed mathematics to grow beyond basic addition and into a profoundly complex science.
"If we lacked empathy, there would be no morality."
I would argue this is false, because I define morality purely in an objective manner, where the subjective psychological experience of the human mind is irrelevant. Regardless of how people feel, moral societies have proven to be more productive and successful than amoral societies, and the more flawed a moral system used to govern a country is, the less prone that country is to success.
I argue that morality is just a method of orchestrating human behavior within a group of people that leads to greater success for that group of people as a whole. Even if people had no feelings, murdering each other randomly would still reduce the success and capabilities of that society when compared to a society that doesn't murder people randomly.
Even without feelings involved, morality still produces a clear and measurable benefit to society. Even if people were completely emotionless, the objective benefit of a moral society such as increased yield, stability, power, and success justifies a society acting in a moral way, despite lacking any sort of emotional stimulus that would cause them to feel a certain way about doing so.
That is why I try to reason with this, by saying that morality should function objectively, free from any sort of influence of the subjective experience. I argue that the objective and measurable benefits of morality are what need to be used as the definition of that word, because regardless of the subjective effect of an action within the human mind, reaping the greatest objective benefit from the manner in which we organize and stabilize society is what the true benefit of morality is.
Subjective/empathetic morality is relying upon human instinct such as empathy to infer what is a moral action and what isn't. The issue with using instinct is that these instincts are not designed to function in a civilized and technologically advanced society. The same instinct that allows dogs to find food in the wild is also what causes them to drink antifreeze and die in a technologically advanced society. Our instincts are valuable, as clearly that dog needs to eat, and it would die if it lacked the instinct telling it to do so, but by no means are these instincts perfect and they should not be relied upon when we have the capable to utilize a far more systematic, objective, and verifiable system such as the scientific method.
Quoting creativesoul
My understanding of your statement is that morality is defined entirely by humans. That humans define morality, and without human definition it would not exist or have meaning, something like taste in art, which would not exist without humans to create this standard of taste in the first place.
Either this is your point, or you are agreeing with me, that morality functions independently from human life, and functions independently from any subjective human experience.
I would argue that morality would always function, in the same sense that mathematics always functions, whether or not anything or anyone actually exists. I am arguing that morality functions as a means to optimize a system, essentially it is just rules applied to a naturally chaotic system of equations that optimize the output of that system.
Something like.
3 - X = Y
Y * Z = M
Where M is the output of the system. Naturally you can plug any number, say [-10,10] into any of these variables. Naturally people do that, they are very random, some are more social and beneficial to the world, while some are worse and are not beneficial to the world.
Simple Morality here would be applying constraints to the natural range that can be plugged into the system. Something like X must be less than negative 2. Saying that Z must always be a positive number greater than 0. Already, with these constraints, you produce a much higher yield on average than putting in the entirely random numbers.
Despite having no humans or conscious experience happening within the system, I woud argue that applying those constraints upon the random numbers that are input into the system qualifies as morality, because this is controlling the natural behavior of a system in order to increase the yield of this system.
Looking at morality like this, when you can calculate it in this manner, that means there is a way to compare one action to another, one input to another, and determine which of these two inputs is actually more so moral than the other one. This also means there is a way to calculate the maximum amount of yield, and thus know what actions are the most moral possible actions.
While human society is far more complex than this, I would argue that it is no less explicitly finite and explicitly subject to being measured, analyzed, studied, refined, and optimized in the same manner that this simple system of equations is.
Human society is just the summative result of all actions that occur within it, and these actions all influence the result of subsequent actions, and this is identical to a system of equations in that regard. Knowing this, I would argue that nothing is truly defined by subjective or opinionated arguments, but rather we use these simpler and more accessible forms of arguments as a substitute for hard, measurable equations that we don't have. We create rules of thumb that are generally of reasonable quality, but often times these rules may not be completely accurate due to the profound volatility of the results.
Using this simple equation as an example. Say you have 100 people, and 95 of them operate at a value less than 3, meaning they all produce a positive yield to the net result M. However, you have 5 people who have an X value greater than 3, you have 4,5,6,7,8 for the X value. When these people go through the system they all have a negative influence upon society, provided the value of Z, say, technological ability of society, remains positive.
Though morality, on the whole, says "Murdering people is wrong", this is true 95% of the time according to this example, because 95% of the time those people provide benefit to society, and thus live in accordance with morality. The issue is that 5% of the time where the people harm society, they produce a negative result. Morality would cause people to object to murdering them, but if you used this calculated morality, you could easily justify murdering these people.
The moral action produces a higher M value, so by killing these people, reducing their X value here to 0, then you have effectively increased the total M value produced by society. When "Increasing M value" becomes the sole definition of morality, it clears up many issues where the general rules of thumb utilized by morality fall short, or are not in accordance with this empirical definition of morality, and thus cause major arguments due to this, such as the death penalty for example.
I agree with this. The point here is about maximizing the extent that a society will flourish indefinitely. Giving people a personal benefit is often contrary to this. Think of people personally benefiting from high wages or corrupt courts.
I would go so far as to argue that flourishing is even independent from any subjective experience associated with that.
Say that a rabbit suffers for its entire life, it feels pain every day, it has no desire to be alive. Subjectively, perpetuating the species provides no benefit to any member of the species, but in regards to flourishing, perpetuating the species is the correct thing to do. I would argue that flourishing is more important than any subjective or desired benefit, as the sustained flourishing of life has been defined as a baseline characteristic of all life, such as single celled non-conscious life, and thus ensuring that life flourishes is always more of a baseline and justifiable intent than ensuring any sort of desired benefit.
This argument is akin to ensuring that the car runs, rather than ensuring that the car is comfortable. Even if the car is uncomfortable, the purpose of a car is to be a means of locomotion, the comfort is just a secondary aspect of the car. A car that is comfortable but does not drive does not qualify as a car in my eyes.
I would say you are justified in this sense. There are an infinite number of numbers that exist, regardless of the fact that no conscious entity will ever be able to comprehend and process this information, the numbers all still exist regardless of being acknowledged or thought about. Ideas here exist in the same right as numbers, there are an infinite number of ideas, as these can all be conceptually represented akin to numbers, using something like a computer programming language. regardless of whether or not anything has ever had or thought of these ideas, they still exist, just as a possible combination of numbers/code/etc.
Love is just sustained passion within the human mind, passion here being the equivalent of instinct. It is something that encourages people to act in a certain way. Something like psychochemical cocaine, it feels good, you crave it, you chase after it, and by my standard this love would produce results. You love your wife, you create children. You love your children, you create higher quality children.
This is the basic instinctive level, it is a strong chemical force within the brain to compel us to do certain actions. Naturally these actions would be largely rooted in reproductive and familial success. A family that loves each other will be more prone to mutual success and survival than one who doesn't. When a trait increases the survival rate of a species, this trait gets passed down and concentrated due to increased survival/reproduction of the carriers when compared to individuals that lack these traits.
This instinct is actually a very beneficial one that usually provides good results in society, even if love can often lead people astray, it can also lead people down incredible paths of discovery that lead to the advancment of the human race. Say a person loves science, or math, they can use this love and passion for these subjects to actually produce high value products, in the same sense that human romantic love produces the high value product of human children.
Love, I would argue, is an instinctive response that can be measured and understood objectively, but love itself as humans experience it is the subjective interpretation of this entirely objective process. Something like cocaine. The chemical cocaine is entirely objective in nature, but the human experience when insuflating cocaine is a largely subjective one.
While it is true that if we had an infinite amount of computational and analytical power, we could likely map and analyze the the brain and human body to the point where we could predict each and every person's subjective experience when doing cocaine with 100% accuracy. We are not at that point, but even still, that would just be an objective representation of the subjective experience. Even if the data can predict how you will feel, the data truly cannot feel high, it cannot feel the pleasure of cocaine, and that experience of feeling is what I would call subjective.
That is a fair semantic argument, and I will admit I easily misused the word definition there.
The point being that definition, meaning the defining trait of life, that in it's purest essence, life is just flourishing competitively, indefinitely. I would argue that anything that does this qualifies as life. Even if robots exist, exterminate humanity, but still have the drive to ensure that they flourish competitively over an indefinite period of time, then i would argue that those robots are still life. Not organic life, but life none the less.
The dictionary definitions of life are going to be broad, they're going to cover a lot of ground. If we took all of the intricacy, all of the localized meaning of life, and we boiled it down to the key traits of life, what would be left?
"the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death." is listed as the basic traits of life. I would argue that "to flourish competitively" is a fair comprehensive description of these things.
As for applying the scientific method.
Step 1: Make observations. Observations can be qualitative or quantitative. ...
Step 2: Formulate a hypothesis. ...
Step 3: Design and perform experiments. ...
Step 4: Accept or modify the hypothesis. ...
Step 5: Development into a law and/or theory.
I would argue that there is enough information about the general tendencies of life to support my points. Qualitatively, life competes and life flourishes, one could quantify this and I'm sure many people have, such a the wolves and rabbits simulator. This is basically the key unifying feature of life which I just happen to emphasize. All life is unified in this pursuit. I am just arguing my theory right here.
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/RabbitsAndWolves/
That's a quantification that displays 3 things, grass/rabbits/wolves all competing in order to flourish competitively.
But there are plenty of examples in nature of life that is far from flourishing. Animals can live for significant periods without flourishing or excelling, when they're malnourished, struggling, and just about surviving.
The two definitions of altruism here. The reason I am drawing this semantic line is because there are some significant differences.
-the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.
This is somewhat accurate, but my argument isn't inherently altruistic. It is Disinterested and selfless concern for the success of society, of the human species, but not for any individual human. Nothing about my argument defends anyone's well-being. If there is a trade off between the indefinite success of society and an individual's well-being, society is what is defended and the person's well-being is disregarded.
Altruism here promotes a sense of caring about other humans, having compassion for others. Altruism would be associated with the strong protecting the weak and vulnerable. That is not my argument at all.
2-behavior of an animal that benefits another at its own expense.
This would not really benefit any other animal, as everything is done with respect to society as a whole. Any benefit to any animal is done because this benefit to the animal is measurably beneficial to the overall success of society as a whole.
It is perhaps societal altruism, but the word gets associated with very sympathetic and empathetic arguments which I condemn.
Quoting S
It's fair that you don't accept the definition, but I lack a better word for this concept. Morality has always been the fabric of individuals banding together and cooperate. Morality is easily the only thing that produces this result, and this is why I equate morality to this process, and this is why I equate anything that accomplishes this to morality.
Quoting S
That is a very broad sense of individual. I see an individual as something that operates entirely independently. Something like a car part. True, independently these things do exist, but without the car they functionally have far less value and have very little justification for their existence. This is why I see the individual human as something akin to a car part, yes, an individual car part, but the car is what is providing value here, the car is what legitimizes the existence of the car part. Without the car, that individual part is not comparable to functional car part, the carburetor that functions inside of a car provides far more value to the owner and to society than the carburetor that sits in the junkyard.
As the car part cannot be divided from the car and retain the same degree of functionality and value, it cannot provide this value without the existence of a car to exist within, that is why I argue that the person, so inherently co-dependent upon the society it exists within, cannot be respected as an individual. The society is what gives the person such a high degree of value, as without this society the value of a modern person plummets significantly. Without the car, the car-part is just scrap metal, but within the car, the part is able to provide legitimizing and competitive value that justifies its existence.
In a world where the independent individual has become functionally irrelevant in the face of society, this is why I argue that no human can be an individual, because existing within this car, providing value to the society, has become a definitive trait of the modern human.
This is temporary struggle, and this is largely irrelevant. Flourishing here occurs over the period of thousands, tens of thousands, millions of years. It is the collective performance of the speices over this very long period of time that defines whether or not they have flourished or failed to do so. If the animals consistently struggle and suffer to the point of failing to compete for this entire period of time, then they are more than likely will go extinct.
Even if the animal suffers every second of their life, this is irrelevant so long as their numbers are increasing. Flourishing here just referring to the increasing density of the animal population over an indefinite period of time.
Look at Africa, while they may be struggling, malnourished, and suffering, the fact that they continually cause their population to increase means that this population is flourishing. This is the only real metric of flourishing, at least so long as their overproduction doesn't cause the human race in Africa to go extinct, which it likely wont.
This is opposed to places like Europe and Japan, where the birthrate is below replacement, and as this causes their populations to decrease, despite their own well-being, success, happiness, and comfort, these societies do not qualify as flourishing because despite their success, their populations are decreasing rather than increasing.
It just sounds to me like you're trying to do in different words what Darwin already did, and did better. Survival of the fittest.
What's that got to do with morality? Darwin wasn't a moral philosopher. He was doing science, not ethics.
Why don't you just say something along the lines that you value collectives and cooperation, that you think they're a good thing, and that you think that an ideal society could be founded on that basis?
That would be fine. It would just be your opinion, and it would be up for debate. But you keep overstepping your bounds by saying things like that's morality itself. No, it's just your opinion.
Look, you can come up with some lengthy and elaborate explanation for why you said what you did, but none of it matters. If you end up concluding that I'm not an individual, when I clearly am, then you've obviously gone wrong somewhere, whether that's due to bad logic or due to defining words in unusual ways.
"While it is true that if we had an infinite amount of computational and analytical power, we could likely map and analyze the brain and human body to the point where we could predict each and every person's subjective experience when doing cocaine with 100% accuracy. We are not at that point, but even still, that would just be an objective representation of the subjective experience. Even if the data can predict how you will feel, the data truly cannot feel high, it cannot feel the pleasure of cocaine, and that experience of feeling is what I would call subjective. "
M, Thank you for your reply and elucidation. Just wanted to make a 'succinct' point about some dangers of dichotomizing... . And to your point, it would be nice to be the so-called designer of the big cosmological computer [our mind] to gain such volitional knowledge and awareness of ourselves and behavior... . (Actually a friend of mine is developing some newer software that would predict market buying patterns in relation to a given set of criteria.)
The entire point of this argument is saying that morality can be understood, measured, formalized, and calculated scientifically. Of course I'm going to use arguments rooted in known science to validate my point...
Again. You "ought" to change the oil on your car consistently. This is an "ought" point. An ought point is just a very vague and non-formalized version of an "is" point. "It has been proven that changing the oil of a car after X miles, say 5,000, significantly improves the life span and health of the car. Failing to do so will result in severe damage to your car."
This is the basis of my argument here. Ever "ought" statement can be formalized into something that is no longer opinion based and is formalized using impartial and objective data.
Why defend vagueness over specificity?
"A person oughtta do some things and oughtta not do other things." - This argument is the "epitome" of philosophical morality when you defend vagueness, generalizations, opinions, and other sorts of non-impartial and non-empirical metrics to function as the basis of your argument. It emphasizes the vague generalization that philosophy defends when they try to argue that philosophy some cannot be subjected to impartial, empirical, and scientific formalization.
"I figure." is the epitome of any arguments regarding subjective philosophical reasoning to explain anything.
Philosophy is sitting between these two poles, these two finish lines. One is the extremely specific, empirical, impartial, calculable formalization. The other is all-encompassing vagueness. Philsophy tries to draw a line in the sand between the two ends and then argue that line is the "finish line" thus philosophy has won, and is now the pinnacle of legitimacy.
Lines in the sand are logically fucking nonsense. You're either trying to discover and explain truth in a formalized and verifiable manner, or you're trying to make vague, general, baseless, all-encompassing statements. There's no middle ground here.that has any legitimacy.
Either be the tallest or the shortest. There's no value in being "average sized" here. Science has proven that being the tallest provides an incredible amount of measurable value to society. Being the shortest here, it serves at the very least to prove a point. Being "average sized", doesn't mean anything beyond the fact that you're not optimized with regards to either of the possible standards of legitimate optimization.
The only optimization that philosophy may be able to claim is accessibility and communicability. Why is a system that optimizes accessibility and communicability over veracity and functional legitimacy still respected by anyone seeking any sort of truth or insight?
Consulting philosophy for truth is itself illogical because philosophy does not produce truth, it just produces communicable and accessible statements. There is nothing that exists, of yet, to actually measure philosophical arguments in a way that serves to prove them in objective and impartial manners.
It is inherently possible to do this, but philosophy makes no attempt at doing so. It's shameless really to claim you are somehow a source of truth when you have absolutely no standards by which the truth is accurately measured and validated.
Because it's not a fucking opinion. It's an impartial, objective, measurable quality of cooperation within a society. It's not up for debate whether or not ten people can pull a cart with greater speed and efficiency than an individual. The only way the individual can pull the cart farther is when those 10 people all kill each other. Hence, this is why I argue that morality is the system of rules/equations that allows these 10 people to not kill each other.
I don't value anything personally. I loathe the human race. I'd rather not see them exist. I'm just arguing an entirely objective point for entertainment sake.
At this point it is a matter of semantics. Is an organ an individual? I can divide the organ out of a person's body.
My point is that the organ does not exist or survive without the human body that it is contained within, thus the organ does not function as an individual. It cannot be divided without losing the inherent justification and purpose of its own existence.
A non-functional kidney lying in the street is not a kidney. It's just essentially just fertilizer, it does not function as a kidney, it does not provide any function that is different than fertilizer, thus it qualifies as fertilizer, but not a kidney.
If this word means what I understand it to mean, then in essence this is the basis of my argument. Dichotomizing meaning, from what I can infer, things existing in a paradoxical state, in one that is simultaneously two contradictory things.
I see morality as no more separable from natural, physical law, no more separable from impartial, empirical, mathematical logic as the existence of a rock, the trajectory of a thrown rock, or anything else that exists within this world.
The experience of a rock is in no way defined by subjective interpretations of that experience, and by the same logic no physical, material entity within the universe is in any way influenced by subjective interpretations of the experience of said object. Humans are explicitly physical, material entities, and thus every aspect of their existence is just as much defined entirely by impartial, objective, empirical logic as any rock on the ground is.
Sure, we can safely say our consciousness breaks many rules from say formal logic. For instance, statements about self-reference is one unresolved paradox.
Accordingly, and since we're talking morality, I will defer to existentialist philosopher-psychologist A H Maslow who deserves much of the credit here. At the risk of repetition from other threads, formal logic and computers and most mathematical formulas are more A or B to function properly. Human life and conscious existence is more A and B to function optimally.
Your last paragraph I would not be on the same page. The reason is that most truth's are both objective and subjective viz. our perceptive cognitive thought process. In part, the reason simply lies in the subject/object
phenomena.
But I'm thinking you might be aware of that...
Yes, I suppose morality, as in people's judgements about right and wrong and that sort of thing, can to some extent be understood, measured, formalized, and calculated scientifically. But somehow I doubt that that's what you meant to say, and even if it was, so what? That seems fairly trivial unless you use it as part of a normative ethical argument.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
In what way do you think that the mechanism of natural selection "validates" your point?
This reply of yours is once again far too verbose, and fails to show that one can derive an "ought" from an "is". Empty words, and far too many of them.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Yes, it is an opinion. It is just an opinion which you are calling impartial, objective, etc., etc., when it isn't.
And raising merely descriptive facts which in themselves have nothing whatsoever to do with ethics, i.e. about what is moral or immoral, or what we should or shouldn't do, is to raise points which miss the point. You would have to draw a valid and logically relevant conclusion from them, which you cannot do. You do not seem to understand that it doesn't matter, in itself, in the context of ethics, that ten people can pull a cart faster than one person, or that people in those sorts of situations can cooperate with each other. That doesn't validly support any normative ethical conclusion, about what is good or bad, right or wrong, about what should or should not be done, regardless of whether or not I happen to have any view about the merits of cooperation, or about the fundamental role that it has in societies.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
But the only objective points you've made are ethically irrelevant. It is an objective point that ten people can pull a cart faster than one person. It is an objective point that there exist societies full of individuals who cooperate in many respects, and who by and large follow a set of rules. So. Bloody. What?
It almost seems futile to get through to you. You just keep responding with lengthy blether and more insistences that you are being objective, impartial, scientific, blah blah.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
An organ is obviously not an individual in the sense that I was using that word, but yes, an organ is an individual organ.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Yes, I already know your point. I am simply criticising it on the basis that it clashes with how we ordinarily talk. The problem stems from your idiosyncratic definition of an "individual", which should be rejected because it leads to absurd conclusions.
Quoting Marzipanmaddox
Yes it is. See? This is your problem.
Nah, it's that you repeatedly make the same error of wording statements stronger than is warranted, then get called out, then backtrack.
You'll probably do it again in the next ethics discussion. You remind me of a puffer fish.
So there was more than one question raised:
Why is subjective morality respected?
Why use or defend a subjective metric in a universe that has proven to be entirely defined by objective metrics?
Is subjective morality respected, and if so, who respects it and who does not? In my mind, the question reads more like "should subjective morality be respected", and to carry that forward in accordance to the actual title of the post; "Should subjective morality be respected over objective morality?". Morality is simultaneously the principles we use to guide our actions and choices and what we use then to judge said actions and choices. That being said, the question can be reduced to; "How do we judge how to judge?". The first question as originally stated almost presupposes that objective morality and subjective morality exist in mutual exclusivity within individuals who "subscribe" to either one or the other, as if this dichotomy represents a real or conscious choice in most people and as if this is a distinction that most people make insofar as to which one to respect as being valid. The original post then quickly moves on to more of a commentary on ethics. This, of course, is always the efficacy and progression when speaking to morality, as ethics represents what one actually does or chooses to do. I don't think it can be said that all actions and choice are driven solely by morality, nor do I think all actions and choices could be said to not have some consideration to one's morality.
One of my pet peeves is the use of the term "common sense" in lieu of "conventional wisdom" when the latter is almost always what means to be conveyed. In that light, I think the one who posed these questions and I have different associations in certain relationships between morality and ethics. I've always associated objective morality with deontological ethics and subjective morality with utilitarian ethics. My thinking here is that deontological ethics seem to rise from something relatively tangible, so to a sense, objective. For example, a written religious or doctrinal code or set of laws. (I'm not going to bring up metaethics vs normative ethics because: reasons :p) Subjective morality, in terms of my association with it and utilitarian ethics, seems to be driven more by consensus or the judgment (conventional wisdom) of the "collective" and not a tangible or explicitly written code or doctrine.
Laws, then, can be said to derive from both "schools of thought", as some seem to be more universal (deontological) and some are relative and evolve over time (utilitarian)(and I'm aware that this statement does not encompass the primary distinctions between the two). Aside from the extremes of fundamentalism and radicalism/absolutism, I don't believe that it is a question of which is superior (subjective or objective morality), rather it is an observation of the hybridization of the two within cultures, societies, and legal systems. Now this is sort of digressing to discussing moral relativism which may be simultaneously relevant to the topic and tangential to my points. I suppose what I am trying to say is that in practice and in my observations, most people tend to vacillate between deontological ethics and utilitarian ethics... essentially moral particularism, regardless of what they consider their morality to be. This, of course, leads to Trolley Problems and all those neat little things that attempt to exemplify each course. So, to answer the first question: It's relative! (don't hate me).
So, on to the second question... This again represents a dichotomy that may not be mutually exclusive. I think it speaks more to intent vs. action, which again is related to deontological ethics vs. utilitarian ethics. If the intention or imperative in one's mind is adherence to deontological ethics, then the consequences and results of their actions are immaterial, and conversely, if they are adhering to utilitarian ethics they are only concerned with the consequences and intended outcome. Moral particularism takes the question of superiority out of the equation and also removes the assumption of the mutually exclusive dichotomy. Is there a metric that measures existence or the weighing of a choice within one's mind? A metric can be a way of saying a judgement.. an observation.. perception itself.. So then, this maybe becomes a discussion on objective existence and subjective existence. I think the sentiment behind the second question may be partly influenced by certain sentiments in modern politics, which is that acting or thinking based on feelings (or emotions) is weak in comparison to adhering to a set of values in accordance to a set of beliefs or a creed... or at least I see some commonality. Therein lies the problem in my opinion, in this conflation. It seems we are arguing within the scope of how objective and subjective are used in regard to social phenomena and policy as if they are applicable in the same way as empiricism and theory are in the broad field of physical science. So to answer the second question; I don't believe there is a need to defend one over the other, rather one should be able to weigh each individual choice or course of action as a confluence of experience, beliefs, ideas, thoughts, education, theories, and perception of reality. I don't believe there can be one overarching way to "calculate morality" and take all the nuance out of something inherently more complex than a simple dichotomy.
This is my first time here and my first comment. I am not formally educated in any of this and so hopefully I don't come off as too much of a noob.