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Moral Acts
#91
RE: Moral Acts
(January 13, 2017 at 2:17 am)robvalue Wrote: There are many objective ways of assessing wellbeing. I'm saying that it doesn't mean anything to say one of them is "right". What could that possibly mean? I literally have no idea.
Well, if they're objective...and accurate, in what sense could they be wrong?  Are we talking right and wrong like...accurate and inaccurate, in this regard?  If there are many objective ways of measuring human wellbeing, then it should be blissfully simple to then make objective moral statements based upon them.

Quote:Let's say all our opinions are wrong, and we somehow discover through science that it's a moral fact that rape is "right".
I'm not sure what our opinions have to do with this one.  If we discovered that rape was not harmful, more than that, it helped people?  That's the only way, in the context of an objective morality based on human wellbeing...that we could discover by any means (scientific or otherwise) that rape was morally right.  Are we actually entertaining this idea?  

Quote:What does that even mean, what does it matter, and would it affect anyone's actions? Would you adjust your opinion to line up with this "fact"?
No, but I don't always adjust my behavior to the moral facts of the matter that I currently accept...that doesn't "unfact" them, it's just makes me human.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#92
RE: Moral Acts
I thought you were saying that there could be a single, correct way to measure wellbeing. Now you're saying there could be several correct methods? How can it be objective? If you're just arbitrarily picking one, then sure. It's then objective, based on whoever makes that decision. But which is the best? How do you determine how good any of them are?

I'm saying that reducing wellbeing to a number is a highly subjective process. I could come up with ways of doing it right now. Hundreds of different ways. How exactly do we decide which are acceptable?

The problem is that saying a way of measuring wellbeing is "correct" implies a specific goal, or set of goals. What are the goals? What is wellbeing? What are we trying to achieve? It's so vague that this really isn't clear.

I think we're having a fundamental misunderstanding, and I'm trying to figure out what it is. I was using the idea of "rape being right" to show that the idea of a moral fact is not a coherent concept. Morality is about deciding how to make decisions, and that involves valuing things in different ways. You also seem entity concerned with the outcome of actions, and the intentions behind them don't seem to matter. To me, morality is much more complicated. So we're probably not even discussing the same thing.

Again, here's a simple scenario. My child has some weird disease, so that it will die at the age of 15, and will be in a certain amount of pain. It's possible to administer a drug that will reduce the pain by a certain amount, but will reduce the lifespan to 10.

What is the "morally correct" decision? If morality is supposed to be objective, it must be able to answer moral dilemmas. If it can't, it's not morality as found in real life. I would say there is no morally correct decision. It's a matter for debate. If there was a "correct" decision here, it would be of no consequence because people would generally ignore it, as you would do with the rape thing. The correct decision would just be dependent on the method used to work out wellbeing in each case, and different methods would produce different answers. Who picks the method?
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#93
RE: Moral Acts
(January 13, 2017 at 4:57 am)robvalue Wrote: I thought you were saying that there could be a single, correct way to measure wellbeing.  Now you're saying there could be several correct methods?
Wasn't that your suggestion up above?  I was agreeing.

Quote: How can it be objective? If you're just arbitrarily picking one, then sure. It's then objective, based on whoever makes that decision. But which is the best? How do you determine how good any of them are?
I'm sorry, this line of questioning seems fractured.  I think that the way(s) we measure the effect of poverty is/are objective, for example.  No single person makes that decision, and an objective decision or conclusion isn't one that a person just makes.....?  The methods and conclusions are constantly reviewed and refined.  IDK if we'll ever have a best, but what does best have to do with it?  

Quote:I'm saying that reducing wellbeing to a number is a highly subjective process. I could come up with ways of doing it right now. Hundreds of different ways. How exactly do we decide which are acceptable?
Is there some reason we have to pick one?  If hundreds of studies conclude, for example, that rape is harmful....it might be that one study captures a specific factor better than another study, but the prepoderence of the common conclusion, based upon verifiable evidence, is that it's harmful.  That it's harmful is enough to conclude, objectively...in a moral system based upon human wellbeing, that it's immoral.  

Quote:The problem is that saying a way of measuring wellbeing is "correct" implies a specific goal, or set of goals. What are the goals? What is wellbeing? What are we trying to achieve? It's so vague that this really isn't clear.
The goal of every moral system appears to be the wellbeing of it's adherents.  People disagree upon how to best pursue that goal, or what wellbeing is,but the goal itself is fairly uniform.  Similarly, human wellbeing isn't quite so vague and fluid as to allow for rape as an effective way to increase human wellbeing. 

Quote:I think we're having a fundamental misunderstanding, and I'm trying to figure out what it is. I was using the idea of "rape being right" to show that the idea of a moral fact is not a coherent concept.
You finding another way to say somehing you've already said does';t establish it any more than the last time.  Why is it not a coherent concept? It may be incorrect, it may be innaccurate, perhaps we possess no moral fact of the matter, perhaps an objective morality is beyond our grasp...but incoherent?

Quote:Morality is about deciding how to make decisions, and that involves valuing things in different ways. You also seem entity concerned with the outcome of actions, and the intentions behind them don't seem to matter. To me, morality is much more complicated. So we're probably not even discussing the same thing.
We haven't really discussed intentions, I don't know how you'd know my position on that or what difference it would make in context.  People do bad things with good intentions, and sometimes manage to do good things with bad intentions.  If you intend o save the world by raping someone, ala your previous example..I'd call it an immoral act with good intentions.  There's not much difficulty in separating the issues on that count.  

Quote:Again, here's a simple scenario. My child has some weird disease, so that it will die at the age of 15, and will be in a certain amount of pain. It's possible to administer a drug that will reduce the pain by a certain amount, but will reduce the lifespan to 10.

What is the "morally correct" decision? If morality is supposed to be objective, it must be able to answer moral dilemmas. If it can't, it's not morality as found in real life. I would say there is no morally correct decision. It's a matter for debate. If there was a "correct" decision here, it would be of no consequence because people would generally ignore it, as you would do with the rape thing. The correct decision would just be dependent on the method used to work out wellbeing in each case, and different methods would produce different answers. Who picks the method?
Some dilemmas may have no morally correct solutions.  If there is no morally correct solution, it;s not a moral dilemma, it's not a moral anything at all - or..alternatively, you simply have no morally acceptable options in that situation.  That an objective morality might exist does not mean it would be applicable to each and every situation in life.  Hell, not every situation in life is a moral situation.  Now, as to the rest, just because people might ignore an objective moral statemen doesn't make it any less of an objective moral statement.  I do that all the time, as I mentioned before.  The last part keeps cropping up, but no single one of us decided the subject of morality.  It just came out in the wash that morality centers around different takes on human wellbeing, how to pursue it, how not to be the douche that fucks it up, etc. Right and wrong seems to be a list of whats harmful and helpful...no matter how a person conceptualizes it, and if theres -any- objective way to measure what harms and helps..then an objective morality is possible. If there are hundreds of ways...it's not only possible, it's potentially robust.

More robust than any "well, that's just, like, your opinion..man" retort could possibly hope to call into question. Imagine a person fielding that one with regards to some other subject of inquiry with hundreds of avenues of study, all of which coalescing on at least some common thread...like, for example, what I would call the inassailable fact of the harm that rape does to the individual and to society. If that's not enough to make the immorality of rape a moral fact of the matter, what could be? Repeat the question with any fact of any other matter.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#94
RE: Moral Acts
(January 12, 2017 at 8:03 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: wouldn't it just be is morality objective?

There are two main reasons why I would be reluctant to debate the question “Is Morality Objective?”
The first reason is that I’m not entirely convinced that morality IS objective. In this thread I find myself arguing against it. Many AF members are saying that following evolved instincts in light of rationally based universal principles produces moral knowledge. And one could argue that it could produce a kind of practical guide for behavior, but nothing anyone would recognize as moral and certainly not anything close to resembling the values of liberal Western societies.

So in a way, I haven’t been defending objective morality as such; but rather, questioning whether practical reason can produce specific universal values, like existential equality, that inform principles such as The Golden Rule. Lately, it seems to me that support for such values (liberal Western ones) ultimately comes from special revelation; or rather, special revelation supports the preference of transcendent values over expedient ones. So what I am saying is that formulating the right debate question is a bit tricky when both parties actually agree in kind but differ by degree.

Secondly, the quality of any debate depends on both parties accepting a reasonable amount of common ground. Bennyboy bends very strongly towards idealism. (Yes?) I could see us stuck debating the ontological status of reality itself rather than focusing on ethics. Both parties would need to acknowledge some degree of objectivity from the start.
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#95
RE: Moral Acts
(January 13, 2017 at 11:01 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Secondly, the quality of any debate depends on both parties accepting a reasonable amount of common ground. Bennyboy bends very strongly towards idealism. (Yes?) I could see us stuck debating the ontological status of reality itself rather than focusing on ethics. Both parties would need to acknowledge some degree of objectivity from the start.
Well, I think you'll have to lay out your question and your terms clearly first, and then see if anyone's willing to step onto the battlefield.

I'm not really an idealist, tbh. However, as an agnostic, I don't really relate to a material monist world view either.
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#96
RE: Moral Acts
Since I'm really only interested in raising the issues in an intelligent and respectful way, a way that might even reveal areas of broad agreement, maybe a fairly nuetral motion would be something like:

Do purely secular means supply satisfactory moral principles?
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#97
RE: Moral Acts
(January 13, 2017 at 4:50 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Since I'm really only interested in raising the issues in an intelligent and respectful way, a way that might even reveal areas of broad agreement, maybe a fairly nuetral motion would be something like:

Do purely secular means supply satisfactory moral principles?

Hmmm. . . are you going to argue in the negative?
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#98
RE: Moral Acts
(January 13, 2017 at 6:08 pm)bennyboy Wrote:
(January 13, 2017 at 4:50 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Since I'm really only interested in raising the issues in an intelligent and respectful way, a way that might even reveal areas of broad agreement, maybe a fairly nuetral motion would be something like:

Do purely secular means supply satisfactory moral principles?

Hmmm. . . are you going to argue in the negative?

For this question, yes.

I would first argue that secular ethics are not satisfactory. There is an obvious subjective judgement built into the question - a value judgement of whether the resulting ethics generally conform to liberal Western values.

I would then argue that certain ways of reasoning about ethics do indeed produce satisfactory results but that they ultimately rely on non-secular premises.

(Although, it would be interesting to play a "bizzaro world" version in which I argue in the negative. Another time perhaps.)
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#99
RE: Moral Acts
(January 13, 2017 at 6:25 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:
(January 13, 2017 at 6:08 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Hmmm. . . are you going to argue in the negative?

For this question, yes.

I would first argue that secular ethics are not satisfactory. There is an obvious subjective judgement built into the question - a value judgement of whether the resulting ethics generally conform to liberal Western values.

I would then argue that certain ways of reasoning about ethics do indeed produce satisfactory results but that they ultimately rely on non-secular premises.

(Although, it would be interesting to play a "bizzaro world" version in which I argue in the negative. Another time perhaps.)

I'm down if you want to try it.  I have to say that so far, every formal debate ere has gone like this: post, post, post, someone claims to be super busy, comes back three months later and says he'll have to put off the debate "for a while."

I'm not sure your question requires a formal debate, but I think a 1:1 discussion with all the chatter in a peanut gallery thread could provide a little focus.
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RE: Moral Acts
You and I have been around for a while. We're pretty stable members, so I'm not concerned about that. Between you and I this would be more of a private but formal 1:1, not a challenge. I already have great respect for you and hopefully you feel the same. I propose 3 posts each: opening statement, 1 reply, and a closing statement. Let's also agree to post at our convenience.
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