Why? Why? Morality
There are two kinds of "why?"
1. why1? The "why" of logic. When someone asks you "why?" you provide an argument to prove a point.
2. why2? The "why" of causality. To be asked "why?" is to be prompted for a causal explanation
That out of the way, let's begin...
Moral theory began with religion. In very simple terms, religion prescribed a list of dos and don'ts. The reason (why1?) was that God demanded it and God was the supreme moral authority. However, it didn't stop there. Religion also answered or attempted to answer why2? and stated in clear terms that all evil was caused by Satan, the Devil.
A few centuries, enter Kant, Bentham, Mill, etc. These philosophers invented their own moral theories. I have a very rudimentary understanding of them but what I want to focus on is how these theories answer the two "whys?" I listed above. It is clear that these theories being birthed by professional philosophers trained in logic could answer why1? questions: they were all logical arguments and, if anything, were supposed to help people make moral decisions. The mantle of authority passed from God to Reason.
What is interesting is that these "modern" moral theories don't attempt o answer "why2?" questions at all. There are no explanations as to the cause of our moral ability or disability. In short there is no Satan-counterpart in the moral theories of Kant, Bentham and Mill. Why is it so? After all, knowing the cause of evil can help us avoid evil; knowing the cause of goodness can help us be good. Yet, these philosophers never attempted to trace the chain of causation of evil to its, if you'll allow me, first cause. Surely discovering it would have enhanced the quality of these theories.
Is this state of affairs, moral philosophies ignoring the causal aspect of ethics, deliberate? Did Kant, Bentham and Mill think that finding the equivalent of Satan in their theories was unnecessary or even problematic? Is it because to do this we need psychology, an understanding of human nature, which these moral philosophers didn't have access to? If so, what of modern moral philosophers? Have they, given that psychology is a well-established discipline, attempted to answer the "why2?" questions?
If I'm not mistaken moral philosophers are showing great interest in evolution precisely because they're looking for the cause(s) of morality both good and evil.
1. why1? The "why" of logic. When someone asks you "why?" you provide an argument to prove a point.
2. why2? The "why" of causality. To be asked "why?" is to be prompted for a causal explanation
That out of the way, let's begin...
Moral theory began with religion. In very simple terms, religion prescribed a list of dos and don'ts. The reason (why1?) was that God demanded it and God was the supreme moral authority. However, it didn't stop there. Religion also answered or attempted to answer why2? and stated in clear terms that all evil was caused by Satan, the Devil.
A few centuries, enter Kant, Bentham, Mill, etc. These philosophers invented their own moral theories. I have a very rudimentary understanding of them but what I want to focus on is how these theories answer the two "whys?" I listed above. It is clear that these theories being birthed by professional philosophers trained in logic could answer why1? questions: they were all logical arguments and, if anything, were supposed to help people make moral decisions. The mantle of authority passed from God to Reason.
What is interesting is that these "modern" moral theories don't attempt o answer "why2?" questions at all. There are no explanations as to the cause of our moral ability or disability. In short there is no Satan-counterpart in the moral theories of Kant, Bentham and Mill. Why is it so? After all, knowing the cause of evil can help us avoid evil; knowing the cause of goodness can help us be good. Yet, these philosophers never attempted to trace the chain of causation of evil to its, if you'll allow me, first cause. Surely discovering it would have enhanced the quality of these theories.
Is this state of affairs, moral philosophies ignoring the causal aspect of ethics, deliberate? Did Kant, Bentham and Mill think that finding the equivalent of Satan in their theories was unnecessary or even problematic? Is it because to do this we need psychology, an understanding of human nature, which these moral philosophers didn't have access to? If so, what of modern moral philosophers? Have they, given that psychology is a well-established discipline, attempted to answer the "why2?" questions?
If I'm not mistaken moral philosophers are showing great interest in evolution precisely because they're looking for the cause(s) of morality both good and evil.
Comments (29)
He is using it in a general way, talking about something common to most/all religions, a moral framework...what? Whats the problem?
Quoting TheMadFool
that sure sounds like monotheism, likely Abrahamist. God in the singular, not god as one of many. The list of dos and don'ts sounds like commandments. Indigenous/shamanistic, pagan, polytheistic, animistic religions may have some of this, but it would be an odd way to talk about it, I think. And these types of religions go back further in time than the Abrahamic type religions do. So it really does seem like he is using one type of religion as a model for religions, and given his argument is regarding out of what came morals, it doesn't make much sense chronologically.
Quoting TheMadFool
The idea of God as a supreme moral authority and Satan being the cause of all evil is 'something common to most/all religions'? Really all its common to is Christianity.
This view is based on a complete misunderstanding of rationality.
You see, reason consists of arrows of the type p => q.
You can obviously chain them. Still, if you work your way back, you will end up in starting points that cannot be justified, because justifying the starting points is an exercise in infinite regress. Hence, these syllogistical chains start somewhere and finish somewhere. They are required to be of finite length. This means that there are no arrows out of the starting points that chain further back.
This concept is quite difficult to explain to people who incorrectly believe that they are rational, but who in reality are not. These people are also lousy at other axiomatic subjects such as mathematics, because it works in exactly the same way there too.
Just double check it. Someone who incessantly talks about "reason" is usually someone who can barely handle the very, very basics of arithmetic. How can a person like that believe that he is smart? Seriously, is that intelligence?
In other words, someone who simply fails to understand the basic notions of rationality, is not rational at all, and had better shut up about rationality.
Ok, but you are missing the point completely. Define religion however you want but if its different than how he defined it then he is obviously not talking about your/that religion. His point is specifically about religion as it pertains to a moral framework.
Right, im just saying its not a problem. Why make it into one? It doesnt really matter regarding the point being made, and I cant imagine it preventing anyone from understanding the simple point being made. I dont see a problem.
Ok.
I'm guilty as charged on all counts. Let's be specific and stick to Christianity and see if this thread can be salvaged...
Christianity makes a causal connection between Satan and evil. It also makes a causal connection between good and God. God causes good and Satan causes evil. This is an explanation of what causes good and evil.
It is distinct from offering logical reasons for morality. Christianity doesn't provide a logical argument for each of the ten commandments for example. It simply establishes an authority figure, God, and His word is law. In fact this is probably one reason why people reject christianity. It's at best cute and worst a breeding ground of dangerous fanatics.
So in Christianity there's a cause for good and evil, God and Satan respectively.
Moral philosophy is different. It's an argument-based attempt to prove a system. It appeals to reason rather than authority.
One thing moral philosophy doesn't do and I never heard it being mentioned is to look for a cause for good and evil.
Why is this?
Is it because the cause/origin of morality is deeply embedded in the human psyche or is it because it is redundant in their system?
What is interesting is that quite a few of these philosophies do not talk about evil, only about the Good. And the Good is often linked to a search for objective reality, which leads to happiness or bliss, or enlightenment. Evil, in these philosophies, is almost synonymous to ignorance.
In this line of thought, the cause of the Good is reality itself, and the cause of the "evil" (though not called that) ignorance thereof.
Please excuse any historical inaccuracies in my post and to prevent any further confusion and tangential discussions let's look at christianity vs KB moral theory (Kant/Bentham).
Christianity offers a causal explanation of morality. The origins/first cause of good and bad are God and Satan respectively. While this may sound childish it's commendable in that we have a fix on the origin/cause of morals. Scientifically speaking once a cause is identified control over effects can then be achieved.
KB moral theory is logically formulated but it, unlike christianity, makes no attempt to find a cause/origin of the problem they're trying to solve. Yes, christianity probably got it wrong but at least it was on the right path - searching for a cause which they could then control.
Why is it that Kant and Bentham didn't follow a similar line of inquiry? Why didn't they look for the origins/first causes of good and evil? Scientifically speaking a theory on morality that doesn't mention the causal structure of moral behavior is incomplete.
Possible reasons for Kant and Bentham's oversight or deliberate omission:
1. Finding the cause of good and evil was an impossible task since it is probably buried deep in the human psychology and psychology as a field was nonexistent then
2. Finding the cause is redundant. KB moral theory is complete even without knowing the origin of morality
3. Kant and Bentham made a mistake
Quoting TheMadFool
If moral philosophy made sense, it would name its basic assumptions. If it does not, then it is just an exercise in infinite regress. Naming basic assumptions is very much the same exercise as naming ten commandments. From there on, if you explain these ten commandments, then what do you explain them from? Another set of commandments?
Sorry, that approach is not rational.
Thank you. I see he was in dire need of a psychologist.
I'm a bit befuddled. The issue is complex and I'm unable to present a coherent picture of what it is that I'm trying to get at.
I'll give it my best shot.
Rational thinking is basically applying the rules of logic in whatever it is that you're thinking about. Yes, it has its axioms and postulates and the rest of the a theory is supposed to simply emerge out of these very basic first principles.
There's another area of rationality which is causal thinking. The two are related in the sense that you have to be rational to reason about causality. We could say that causal reasoning is a field to which logic/rationality has to be applied.
The moral theories of Kant, Bentham and Mill are rational works of philosophy by which I mean logic was employed in their construction.
The moral theory of Christianity is less, if rationality can come in degrees, rational. Reason/logic is utilized at a very basic level. The structure of Christian morals is by and large an appeal to authority - God. However, it has one feature missing from the moral theories of Kant, Bentham and Mill viz. that it has a causal component - God causes good and Satan causes evil. This may not seem important and appears puerile but scientifically speaking finding a cause is the first step to controlling the effects.
My question is this: Why didn't Bentham, Kant and Mill study morality under the lens of causality? It seems important because, to keep it simple, find the cause, know the cure. They didn't do that. They simply did not do a causal analysis. Is it because their theories are complete with it? Was it an oversight? That's what I want to know.
Just so you know Coben posted this showing that Kant was indeed seeking a cause for morality.
I would think that the causes of immoral behavior and what is moral are quite different studies, off the top of my head, especially for consequentialists. But even so I would think most of them must weigh in somewhere in their writings about why people are bad or good, if they think in those terms.Quoting TheMadFool
But there should be folk theories and folk psychologies.Quoting TheMadFool
Just to check, when you are talking about the origin of morality, do you mean why people do good and bad things, or the origin of thinking in moral terms.
I think it either case one can try to figure out how people should interact without knowing the origins. IOW one can put forward set of rules and why these are good.
But it does seem to me that if you are thinking of a more complete solution, like how do we get people to follow rules, not hurt each other for no reason - or whatever the breaches are in our system - then it helps to know why they are immoral. Because sharing what is good is likely not enough.
Causal reasoning took a backseat or assumed a secondary role in Kant-Bentham moral philosophies. Unlike Christianity that claims to have found the source of all morals, good and bad, in God and Satan, Kant-Bentham morality makes no such attempts.
Instead what we see in Kant-Bentham morality is a non-causal approach, distinct from Christianity; morality is based on duty and hedonism. If Bentham and Kant were actually searching for origins of morality they would've investigated the reasons why (causal) hedonism and duty are good foundations to build a moral theory on.
we'd better organize things like X, to make things as good as possible.
Don't we more or less get what they think the origins are? Or do you mean they lack an entity like lucifer?
Maybe if you could say an example of what they could have said that would have made it better. Doesn't have to be Kantian or Benthian, just an possible causal X.
I thought of starting a thread on this topic because I remembered an old saw "the root of all evil is money". At once you can see that the intent was to find a cause, the one single cause of all the world's problem - evil.
This quest or search makes practical sense - pinpoint the cause, find a cure. I think doctors use this method with good results.
If finding the cause of good and evil allows us to control moral behavior and hopefully become better people then it becomes urgent and mandatory that we look for it.
However Kant and Bentham never mention doing research on it and any mention made, like the passage you posted, are merely footnotes to their main work. I find this odd and can't think of a reason why.
It's probably because they lacked the psychological knowledge of human nature which is still, even now, sketchy and unreliable. Imagine how it was back then. The data to make a hypothesis on the cause of moral behavior was nonexistent then. The passage you posted on Kant indicates that Kant at least had toyed with idea of a cause of morality. So, it's likely that moral philosophers had considered it but stopped their inquiry once they realized any theory on the cause of morality would be simply speculation or indefensible.
The ultimate premisses are not explained on grounds of other premisses. There is no other way to do it than to have ultimate premisses. As Aristotle wrote, if nothing is assumed then nothing can be concluded. So, in what way can any moral philosophy avoid reasoning from such ultimate premisses?
I don't know how to respond to this. I'm asking you to look at morality in terms of cause-effect and not simply as a rational project. The two are related but reason/premise-conclusion is different to cause-effect.
The philosophical moral theories like that of Bentham and Kant are rational theories and as you've pointed out have premises, assumptions and conclusions. That's not the problem.
The problem is an absence or cursory treatment of causality vis-a-vis morality. Bentham and Kant weren't trying to find the cause of good and evil. They simply made assumptions about hedonism and duty and built their theories around these objects. If they had wanted to find the cause of good and evil their works would've spoken out as such. But no there doesn't seem to be any evidence that they tried to walk down that path.
No. Morals stem from humans having innate/instinctual dispositions about interpersonal behavior, and the reason we have that is that it was evolutionarily selected for, because feeling that some things aren't kosher made it more likely to survive to be able to reproduce.
Religion gets morality from that fact that we have those innate/instinctual dispositions. Not the other way around.
“...We have finally reduced the definite conception of morality to the idea of freedom. This latter, however, we could not prove to be actually a property of ourselves or of human nature; only we saw that it must be presupposed if we would conceive a being as rational and conscious of its causality in respect of its actions, i.e., as endowed with a will; and so we find that on just the same grounds we must ascribe to every being endowed with reason and will this attribute of determining itself to action under the idea of its freedom....”
(Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, 1785, from Abbott, 1895)
There ya go....a basic assumption, and a moral philosophy based on it.
TA-DAAAA!!!!
Yes, it is the law that makes you free. The idea is very old, though:
James 2:12. So whatever you say or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by the law that sets you free.
The "law" here is the religious law of second-temple Judaism.
Quoting Mww
Yes, agreed. People can decide if they will keep religious law or not. If they do, it will set them free. You will find this idea in one form or another in every offshoot of second-temple Judaism: Rabbinic Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
While that conforms to general consensus, nevertheless, with respect to Kantian deontology, it is freedom that makes one lawful.
————
Quoting alcontali
Here though, again with respect to Kantian deontology, while it is true people can decide on a (moral) law, they are immediately obligated by that law, the true test of moral constitution. I’m not sure how an obligation would set them free, however. Maybe you mean free from the trials and tribulations of having to wonder about what to do next?
The type represented by "=>" being, you assume, syllogistic and deductive? Then finite chains will start abruptly, as you say.
Disconcerting perhaps. Depending on the meanings of the p's and q's.
But Hume and Quine have taught us that reason links p's and q's into chains and webs using other types of link as well. Inductive, associative, habitual, holistic. On this more inclusive view of reason, a finite web doesn't need a clear starting point. Morality, science etc. are large going concerns with unclear sources.
Deductive means any token of some p is license to print unlimited tokens of various (according to the rules) q, r.
Inductive, say "-->", means a more restricted licence, wherein some disputable quantity of tokens (or cases in point or sub-types) of some p is licence to print (utter etc.) some disputable variety of tokens of (according to some habit or disposition) q, r.
Deductive means unfettered influence by any one token-printing agent on any other. Contradictions thereby create (under the rules) an explosive mess, whereas consistent chains or webs are orderly, though oddly lacking in initial stimulation (of production of axiom tokens), except from some external sources (suppositions or observation statements or commandments).
Inductive means fettered influence. Contradictions aren't necessarily catastrophic, but the web (and its rules and fetters) isn't easily and uncontroversially traced, nor are sources of activity (completely unlicensed tokens) identifiable.
Deductive systems behave themselves, or soon crash. This is an attractive feature. Non-deductive systems can be chaotic or dysfunctional. Many people have wished to improve them by rendering them deductive, but they are wrong if they assume that kind of improvement to be either necessary or adequate.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/309873
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/374811