It would be more difficult to find a moral tenet that hadn't changed. All of the things you're criticizing the faithful for, for example, used to be seen as virtues. For some, they still are.

It's an open question, really, whether moral tenets do or don't refer to something more than instinct, and what that is, if they do. We tend to make the assumption that they refer to more significant content - but regardless of the answer to any of that...they do change, don't you think? Have you always had the exact moral thoughts and positions that you do now? Just in our own lives these things can change, I can't imagine how we would see them as unchanging in society or over time.

Don't harm, do help. There you go - that's my entire moral philosophy. Sometimes that means treating others far..faaaaar worse than I would like to be treated, but it also carries a commitment to doing more for others than I expect (or even want) of others for me.

(January 25, 2021 at 5:52 pm)Greatest I am Wrote:

(January 25, 2021 at 4:55 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I don't live by the golden rule, and what do you suspect people lived by before we see the golden rule pop up?  

Is it your contention that human morality has been one way in all places and at all times, or that we yoyo?

I am still waiting to see which moral tenet you see as having changed.

We still follow our instincts as far as I can see, as we either cooperate or compete, as required or desired.

If you do not follow a reciprocity tenet as your first presentation, what tenet do you start with?

Regards
DL

Infanticide leaps to mind. The idea that unwanted newborns should not be exposed on a rubbish heap or drowned in a bucket is a fairly late development. For much of human history, doing so wasn’t even a crime, much less a moral failing.

Boru

Slavery is another one.

Loyalty to country, and particularly loyalty to country over tribe or even your own god, also relatively new. Equality for women and gays, due process and leniency for traitors.......

(January 25, 2021 at 6:31 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: It would be more difficult to find a moral tenet that hadn't changed.  All of the things you're criticizing the faithful for, for example, used to be seen as virtues.  For some, they still are.

It's an open question, really, whether moral tenets do or don't refer to something more than instinct, and what that is, if they do.  We tend to make the assumption that they refer to more significant content - but regardless of the answer to any of that...they do change, don't you think?  Have you always had the exact moral thoughts and positions that you do now?  Just in our own lives these things can change, I can't imagine how we would see them as unchanging in society or over time.

Don't harm, do help.  There you go - that's my entire moral philosophy.  Sometimes that means treating others far..faaaaar worse than I would like to be treated, but it also carries a commitment to doing more for others than I expect (or even want) of others for me.

You confirm that most live by the Golden Rule. Thanks.

We cannot talk so generally and get anywhere. We need to find what you are talking about that you see as changing.

You will have to get more specific in the change you are talking about. A proof of concept.

Regards
DL

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(January 25, 2021 at 6:32 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(January 25, 2021 at 5:52 pm)Greatest I am Wrote: I am still waiting to see which moral tenet you see as having changed.

We still follow our instincts as far as I can see, as we either cooperate or compete, as required or desired.

If you do not follow a reciprocity tenet as your first presentation, what tenet do you start with?

Regards
DL

Infanticide leaps to mind. The idea that unwanted newborns should not be exposed on a rubbish heap or drowned in a bucket is a fairly late development. For much of human history, doing so wasn’t even a crime, much less a moral failing.

Boru

Moderator Notice
Any attempts to use that comment to turn this into an abortion thread - pro or con - will be considered trolling and will be dealt with.

Set and setting decided who would use infanticide or not.

Where resources were limited and the going was hard, it was better to get rid of a baby than to get rid of a worker. Survival demanded it. That is why they tried to sanctify sex within marriage and allowed/encouraged men to use the Temple Prostitutes. 

Nice that child sacrifice was rather rare.

Regards
DL

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(January 25, 2021 at 8:20 pm)Angrboda Wrote: Slavery is another one.

I disagree here.

What other course of action would you offer a slave?

Like the term or not, in terms of an analogy, slavery was the only social safety net.

Regards
DL

There are quiet a few examples in thread. Boru offered some, Angrboda, your thread title is full of them. More fundamentally, we don't think that human beings have always behaved morally, or, at least, we only see evidence of it beyond a certain point pretty far from our beginning and closer to our present.

The acquisition (or production, whichever we prefer) of a moral sense would be a change, and the contents of that moral sense have been fairly elastic ever since whenever that occurred. FWIW, there are notions that some shared reality and shared biology account for whatever morsels of shared moral sense we possess...but, like all things in nature..if this is a purely biological function like instinct in a meaningful sense - there is and has always been variation.

All of that is super interesting and we could spill alot of digital ink about it - but it may be that you just see moral sense and the contents of moral sense as having never changed - and all of the variations beings mistakes and misunderstandings and what have you. I had an earlier question that might give us insight here - without needing to determine for all time what morality is and when we got it.

Let's just suppose, for the purposes of discussion - that moral sense and moral content had changed - and lets suppose that they changed because we realized (or believed) that we had gotten something wrong. Let's suppose that no system has ever corrected every mistaken perception it owns all at one - and so these changes are ongoing.

What would be the issue with that, and wouldn't changing our moral proclamations to accord with more and/or better information over time be a good thing? Now, I do appreciate your angle on institutions who claim the final word and use that claim as a means to abuse - but, between a rock and a hard place...they can either continue to do that, or they can change their moral proclamations. I think that most of us, and most of the faithful, have begun to prefer the latter - but that wasn't always the case...as yet another example for the thread.

(January 25, 2021 at 9:36 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Loyalty to country, and particularly loyalty to country over tribe or even your own god, also relatively new.  Equality for women and gays, due process and leniency for traitors.......

??

They killed Christians and others who would not bow down to Rome and would put their god above Caesar.

Regards
DL

@Greatest I am

Quote:Set and setting decided who would use infanticide or not.

Where resources were limited and the going was hard, it was better to get rid of a baby than to get rid of a worker. Survival demanded it. That is why they tried to sanctify sex within marriage and allowed/encouraged men to use the Temple Prostitutes. 

Nice that child sacrifice was rather rare.

Regards
DL

Set and setting decide ALL moral values, both for individuals and whole societies. In various periods in China and Rome, for example, infanticide was often used without economic hardship being part of the equation (read Cicero’s letters). And yet today, no valid excuse exists for leaving your newborn at the local tip. Why? Because infanticide is no longer morally acceptable. Why? Because morals and moral values change.

Boru

(January 26, 2021 at 11:51 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote:  
What would be the issue with that, and wouldn't changing our moral proclamations to accord with more and/or better information over time be a good thing?  

The issue I would have with that, is that our instincts are set for our best possible end by nature. To change them is to try to second guess nature.

We are natural animals. What change to our instincts would you suggest, given that they are set for our best end?

I appreciate your generalized thinking, but let's get specific.

Regards
DL

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(January 26, 2021 at 11:57 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: @Greatest I am

Quote:Set and setting decided who would use infanticide or not.

Where resources were limited and the going was hard, it was better to get rid of a baby than to get rid of a worker. Survival demanded it. That is why they tried to sanctify sex within marriage and allowed/encouraged men to use the Temple Prostitutes. 

Nice that child sacrifice was rather rare.

Regards
DL

Set and setting decide ALL moral values, both for individuals and whole societies. In various periods in China and Rome, for example, infanticide was often used without economic hardship being part of the equation (read Cicero’s letters). And yet today, no valid excuse exists for leaving your newborn at the local tip. Why? Because infanticide is no longer morally acceptable. Why? Because morals and moral values change.

Boru

?? Which moral value changed?

When did the morality that says we should not murder our children needlessly change in those you name happen?

Why did the practice die out if not a change in the set and setting?

The choice was having a productive member starve to death or the baby.

Which would you choose?

Regards
DL

(January 26, 2021 at 12:03 pm)Greatest I am Wrote:

(January 26, 2021 at 11:51 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote:  
What would be the issue with that, and wouldn't changing our moral proclamations to accord with more and/or better information over time be a good thing?  

The issue I would have with that, is that our instincts are set for our best possible end by nature. To change them is to try to second guess nature.

IDK.  It seems our instincts would be set at the biological level for whatever was best for our population, not the individual.   Self destructive individuality is a successful survival strategy for populations.  We know them as sentries, warriors, martyrs, or heroes.

Quote:We are natural animals. What change to our instincts would you suggest, given that they are set for our best end?

I appreciate your generalized thinking, but let's get specific.

Regards
DL

As before - suppose we were second guessing nature, and we do that alot with our moral intuition.  Is that a problem, why?

It's natural to preach inequality for women and for gays, a not so small amount of bigotry appears to be instinctual. Do you take moral issue with that?

I'll toss in one from my own pov for you, see what you think. Gravity is a natural fact. It informs every bit of our perceptions about the world around us. It is not, however, on account of any fact of gravity, that pushing someone over a cliff is wrong. If we arranged for a stuntman to fall into a giant pillow - or if the entire cliff were an illusion - or if we were super advanced aliens with anti grav just fucking with a moral agent-as-subject in an experiment - none of these other facts would change our appraisal of the subjects actions in pushing our stooge off the cliff.

So, by all means, let's use some natural facts and possibly even instincts to inform us that we're looking at an item of moral import - that can be the first word, but I don't see the value or accuracy in it being the last word.