Religion is a poor source of morality

[robvalue]

But what does that mean, to say there is an objective answer? Honestly, I don't know. How can it be "correct"?

Correct in what way? Surely it depends entirely on what your goals are. If it's just "generally correct"... that seems entirely meaningless.

I don't mean to be a dick, I honestly don't get what this is supposed to mean Go back to my previous example with male versus female wellbeing. What would a "correct" answer mean? Correct in what sense?

If we were omnipotent maybe!? Even then, does omnipotence mean you have the authority to objectively give relative values to conscious beings and their various states? You'd know the outcome of all decisions, so you'd effectively be choosing a state. Which one do you choose?

[Edwardo Piet]

Using google to define:

(of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
"historians try to be objective and impartial".

If science studies well being objectively, it's the same as studying health objectively.

Why define morality that way? Well - why define health that way? And to paraphrase Sam Harris again: If words like "good" and "bad" mean anything at all they mean we should try to at the very least steer away from the worst possible misery for everyone.

[robvalue]

I don't get it, sorry

I don't accept you can measure health objectively, either. Unless you're talking about something as simple as life expectancy or something. And unless you know everything that's going to happen to a person, you can't possibly know how well suited their current state is. So at best you're giving an estimate. If the judgement only applies at that second and is invalid as they walk out the door, then that's not objective either. There's a difference between a sensible estimate or comparable similar situations, and entirely different competing factors. I hear it announced these things "can be done" but I don't see how, and I don't see what use it is.

If I can have just one real world, concrete example of objective morality in action, that would be just dandy! Still don't have one

Of course we want to move away from the worst possible world. But we have essentially infinite different directions to travel away from it, in an infinite number of dimensions; we're not just bobbing about in a couple of dimensions. To reduce it to that, we must assign numerical value to everything. If we don't, we're just waving our hands about and we can't call anything objective. How do you compare pain to lifespan? Something as simple as that. We're talking about the very experiences, and what they mean to the person. How you can take even their opinion about those experiences out of the equation seems ridiculous to me. It's a case of "neutral universe knows best".

I'll leave it at that, we'll probably have to agree to disagree This is a most enlightening discussion though!

PS: I appreciate the input a lot. I'll add more thoughts if they come to me. The thing is, say I discovered that in principle the most objectively moral thing I could do was kill my wife. It's been precisely calculated taking into account every possible outcome, and it's way too complex for me to even begin to understand how that answer was reached. Am I going to care about that? That information is useless to me. Unless I can be persuaded rationally to take such an action, this command is irrelevant. And then it's going to come down to my own subjective assessment and whether I agree; or else someone else enforces this "correct answer" which is some dangerous totalitarian shit.

[Edwardo Piet]

I don't accept you can measure health objectively, either. Unless you're talking about something as simple as life expectancy or something.

Measurement isn't a requirement for objective answers in principle.

There is objectively a difference between someone who is bleeding constantly from both eyes and someone who his clearly very healthy... these things can be measured objectively - but even if they couldn't it's irrelevant.

Once again the objective difference is all that is required in principle, it doesn't need to be able to be measured at all. Answers in principle are different to answers in practice.

Even if no scientist could ever measure the difference between someone bleeding from both eyes and someone who couldn't - fuck that would be a tragedy if no one could tell the difference - there still would be an objective difference in principle.

It's also like how there is still a big difference between food and poison, we don't need to be able to measure what are the very best and very worst foods health wise and all in-between and different food can be better for different people.... and importantly - once again - we don't need to measure at all. There are answers in principle.

[robvalue]

But you're talking about incredibly obvious situations there, there's no conflict Of course when things are that black and white, there's no need for anything but our common sense and experience.

Ah, don't worry. I appreciate you trying to explain, I'm probably just too uneducated in philosophy. I'll give it some thought!

[Edwardo Piet]

Once again though they're just examples - there are answers in principle to none obvious things too:

How many people are suffering from malaria in the world today that would otherwise be a lot happier if they weren't?

We can never in practice work out the exact number of malaria sufferers but there is in principle an answer to the question.

[robvalue]

Yabut... that's an integer. It's clear there is an answer. It's numbers. It's a one dimensional problem, again with no relative factors.

We know there is an answer because we understand numbers. And there would be no subjective element, a number is a number.

Can you give me an answer related to conflicting morality? An answer "in principle" to a moral question, and what the answer means? Like should I remove this guys arms or legs? I have to remove one set, or he will die, for some reason. He's unconscious so I can't ask him. Is there an answer "in principal" to which I should do? If so, what does it mean? To what end?

PS: This landscape thing! I don't like it. Unless he's talking about some weird very fuzzy metaphor, he is saying you can compare two different societies as if they are heights coming off a map. To do this, you must reduce the wellbeing of the society to a number, ultimately, for a direct comparison. Otherwise you're only comparing certain aspects and not the whole thing. You can't draw a graph with half a person in it, and some pain over here, and some trauma here, and a great experience over here... and then measure between two different collections of these objects. To have a "peak" implies that every meaningful way of measuring wellbeing has been maximised, without compromising any single other factor. That's a big assumption, that such a thing can be done. And even then... who gets to say what the "optimum age" of humans is, for example? 100? 200? 500? 10,000? So if there is any conflict at all between maximizing one factor or another, to measure the whole thing, you have to assign relative values. Lifespan is worth x points, pain is worth -y points, etc. That's where I object.

Who cares what I think? SHUT UP ROB! THIS IS BORING!

[Edwardo Piet]

It's not boring I guess it 'clicked' for me and it didn't for you or whatever, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree - I can't really explain it any better than I have. I'm not the best at explaining. Maybe ask Esq what he thinks on the matter.

[robvalue]

Harris will pay! No wait, that's too much.

I appreciate it I'm not trying to say I'm right or anything, I'm truly trying to understand the difference of opinion. My aim is just to discuss and learn.

I thought of an analogy which might express my concerns somewhat. Asking which society is "better" is like me asking which of two cars is "better". Now, if one of them is a brand new sports car and the other is a screwed up banger which can barely move, common sense and every reasonable assessment is going to lead me to say the sports car is "better". I wouldn't argue with that as a sensible assessment.

But instead, I have two different cars, both in decent working order. Different models, different sizes, different specs, different wheels, and so on. Which is "better"? I'd say it's a meaningless question, unless you ask better for what. If there is an answer in principle as to which is "better", then that is meaningless to me. It could only be some sort of graded average of performance under all kinds of different conditions. Which is actually better, in a real situation, is subjective to what I want to do with the car. What I want the car to do is like my whining about the goals of morality. "Maximize wellbeing" is so vague, that just announcing one society to be better (when it's not a sports car versus a banger), is as meaningless to me as saying car A is better than car B without telling me what for.

[Neo-Scholastic]

A conmon omission of the Trolley Dilemma is the effect of the decision that has been forced on the moral agent. Just saying...