(May 5, 2015 at 2:43 pm)AdamLOV Wrote: If the wise choice were to consist in behaving according to one's own nature, then it is still incomprehensible why the survival of a human being should matter more than the self-replication of a virus.

If your point is that human life only has value to humans, then it is a trivial one. Questions about ethics only apply to creatures endowed with reason and the capacity to freely act upon their thoughts.

(May 5, 2015 at 2:43 pm)AdamLOV Wrote: So as to really annoy believers in truth, I would also like to throw in a quote from Michel Foucault: "'Truth' is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, circulation and of operation of statements. 'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it. A 'regime' of truth.”

The Foucault quote makes no reference to the conformity of propositions with objective reality. So in actuality, he’s only talking about how people use diction and grammar. The quote says nothing whatsoever about knowledge.

(May 5, 2015 at 4:33 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote: Adam LOV introduced the question of whether essences are real in any meaningful sense…one can point to the sociological essentialism holding that traits like race, ethnicity, and gender are immutable. This essentialism was cited to help support colonialism and racial apartheid policies no longer considered ethical. We now hold that race, ethnicity, and gender are all social constructs.

You are correct to say that race, ethnicity and gender are social constructs. It does not follow from that fact that there is no such thing as human nature. The theory of evolution was used to justify eugenics, genocide, and social Darwinism. Those misapplications of the theory did not invalidate the theory of evolution.

(May 5, 2015 at 4:33 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote: …the fact that ethics evolve over time shows that whatever's "inside" situations of right and wrong isn't immutable, that is, it isn't a pure essence like "triangleness" is for triangles.

Scientific understanding also has evolved over time. People today have a much more accurate and precise understanding of objective reality than their predecessors. Just because it is easier to understand the nature of triangles (or electrons) doesn’t mean that something as complex as a human being doesn’t have an essential nature. It just takes more effort and discernment to uncover it. Understanding human nature will always be a work in progress, but if you abstract away all the accidental properties of something what remains are the essential properties without which a particular would cease to partake of the universal. With respect to people, the things that differentiate one human from the next, like skin color and sex, are accidental features. The common features shared by all humans are essential features, like rationality. The objectivity of moral judgment depends on keeping these distinct.

(May 5, 2015 at 5:12 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: The valuing of health is certainly not a matter of science. That people generally do value health is a matter of fact, but that they ought to so desire it is something quite different from a mere poll of what people value.

According to Hume, the notion that someone could choose poorly negates the possibility of anyone making a valid objective judgment about what is best. But that cannot be because even scientific inquiry is impossible without making value judgments, like determining that a pure sample of something is better to study than an adulterated sample. Anyone can see that the researcher choosing a sample is making an objective value judgment.

Adults tell children that they shouldn’t play in the street because they could get run over. Imagine a smart kid saying, “The fact that I could get run over if I don’t watch out does not mean I shouldn’t play in the street.” Anyone can see that the ‘is-ought’ objection for what it is: juvenile. Life is an essential part of being an animal. The act of making value judgments is a necessary part of rationality. When someone acts irrationally and unnecessarily endangers his life that means that he doesn’t value being human, not that human life is without value. To actually want what undermines your humanity makes you a worse instance of human. You ought to be the best person you can. That is an objective moral imperative.

(May 5, 2015 at 5:30 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Just because it is easier to understand the nature of triangles (or electrons) doesn’t mean that something as complex as a human being doesn’t have an essential nature. It just takes more effort and discernment to uncover it....

What does this essential nature consist of? The best I can come up with is that it's a minimal set of properties sufficient to distinguish human beings from other things in the cosmos. Although many possible sets of sufficient properties can be advanced, I have doubts that there exists a single minimal set. Deciding what criteria makes a thing human thus becomes a judgment call. What you've called "discernment" above.

I'm not versed in ethics or philosophy in general, so I don't know much in detail about the takes of the "great thinkers" Kant, Hume, Mills, Rawls, etc., or how you would go about determining who has the "best" theory. My guess is that any one of the various theories may turn out most applicable in a given situation, but that no episcopal theory of ethics is feasible in the way it is for physics.

I agree that abuse of essentialism to create a fixed Caucasoid-Mongoloid-Negroid scheme doesn't invalidate the former. I think it's the apparent impossibility of finding those minimal sets I've mentioned that renders essentialism problematic. Not that it's failed of contribution to understanding; economical categorization is important when studying any phenomenon and it can make practical sense to speak of a thing's "nature." In mathematics, where precise definition is possible, we may even have essentialism realized in practice. Nonetheless, it remains a philosophical preference we would be wise not to over-rate.

Does participation in dangerous sports go against this "objective moral imperative"?

(May 5, 2015 at 7:19 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: No.  A dead animal is still an animal.

It is no longer animate, is it? Therefore, it is not an animal anymore; but rather, a pile of inanimate material, i.e. the corpse of an animal.

(May 5, 2015 at 7:08 pm)IATIA Wrote: Does participation in dangerous sports go against this "objective moral imperative"?

Without raising an "objective moral imperative" (a term I've not heard before), we can state that extreme sports enthusiasts impose some costs on the broader society. They demand, as part of a "right to be free from discrimination," to be insured without paying higher premiums, forcing the rest of the insurance pool to subsidize the extra medical risks they take, which may well exceed those taken by street drug abusers, and to pay death benefits to survivors. Balanced against these costs is the fact that extreme sportspersons tend to be members of high-income households that pay more taxes, and perhaps the jobs and industries they create.

I would guess that cost/benefit or utility calculations are our best attempt at "objectivity" in morals, yet deciding what to include in a cost/benefit worksheet and what to leave out is a matter of judgment which can tip the results.

(May 5, 2015 at 7:19 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: Furthermore, the motivation to do anything always involves emotions.  That was something Hume noted...  But this is not involving "an objective value judgement." ...Evidently, your idea of "rationality" includes more than bare reason, but also feelings.

But we've chosen to divide human thought into two categories, "reason" and "emotion," and declare only the former "rational." This decision about the taxonomy of thoughts was already long in effect by the 18th century and is taken for granted unconsciously today. We might ask why emotion, a thing generated by the brain, does not represent the results of any kind of objective calculation. Often feelings are eminently rational. When we feel fear, it's a fair bet that it's because we're in danger of some kind.

I will agree that "reason" is broader. The brain makes emotional calculations very quickly albeit based on partial information and with biases toward the welfare of self and kin. And emotion "thinks" only about certain things. The slower-moving reason can aim at almost any topic and reach a higher level of verbal abstraction. Yet is this grounds enough to exclude emotion from universe of rationality? I might lean toward Chad Wooter on this issue, adding that it's the simultaneous use of both reason and emotion that produces "rationality." Remove either one and we're in trouble: Emotionally disordered people don't behave in a rational manner, while folks who refuse to reason act in a petty, self-centered way.

There are epistemologically objective answers in principle to what is and is not good for the well being of conscious creatures just as there are for matters of health. At the beginning of his book Sam Harris makes it clear that he is talking about epistemic objectivity and not ontological objectivity.

I understand Hume's is ought distinction perfectly and see no proof that prescriptive statements cannot be understood descriptively as Sam Harris suggests.

(May 5, 2015 at 7:08 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote: What does this essential nature consist of? The best I can come up with is that it's a minimal set of properties sufficient to distinguish human beings from other things in the cosmos. Although many possible sets of sufficient properties can be advanced, I have doubts that there exists a single minimal set. Deciding what criteria makes a thing human thus becomes a judgment call.

Actually, the notion that identity comes from a particular set of properties is something that I would prefer to avoid. It leads to the inescapable paradoxes of nominalism and conceptualism. Lately I’ve been a bit cavalier when talking about nature, essence, and identity. I should clarify.
I hold to the moderate realist position. I do not think, like Plato, Forms/Ideas have independent existence. (For the sake of simplicity I will use the capitalized word ‘Form’ for the philosophical meaning of both form and idea.) Nor am I ready to dispense with the notion that reality excludes any objective unifying principles. Or to say it from the other direction, I do not believe that people differentiate universals and particulars arbitrarily from a contiguous reality. Forms are manifest in various instances that partake of the Form, to one degree or another. To intellectually conceive of a Form is not synonymous with imagining it. For example, most people can conceive the Idea of a chiliagon (a polygon with a thousand sides) but very few can fully imagine such a thing
Where I differ from Aristotle and the Neo-Scholatics, is that I do not think types of sensible bodies have their own real Forms; but rather, combine pure Forms within substances to manifest. The hylomorphic union of the Forms and substances give things unique potentials. So I say that if you want to know the essence of a thing it is a matter of knowing 1) the Forms of which it partakes 2)what it is made of and 3) its dispositional properties.
Therefore in one sense I agree with you. Properly identifying what a thing is and of what it potentially become (i.e. its essence) is a judgment call, but it is not an entirely arbitrary one.

(May 5, 2015 at 7:08 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote: … it [essentialism] remains a philosophical preference we would be wise not to over-rate.

People should take care when applying any philosophical principles.

(May 6, 2015 at 5:36 am)Hatshepsut Wrote: Without raising an "objective moral imperative" (a term I've not heard before)…

I linked together three concepts. Objectivity means that everyone shares a common reality even if their level of understanding about it varies. Moral means the conduct necessary to maximally manifest a person’s potential. Lastly, imperative means an unavoidable obligation.

By linking them, I say people share a common reality and understand that reality by applying reason to experience; that reason applied to experience yields knowledge of the real Forms, materials, and dispositions that constitute the essences sensible bodies; that each human being partakes of a common essence; that people face an existential choice to either conform to that essence or act contrary to it; that to act contrary to one’s essence is to be less of the thing that one is (i.e. less good); and that therefore to be and remain human entails the obligation to conform to the essence of what it means to be human.