In Defense of a Non-Natural Moral Order

[John 6IX Breezy]

Meh, not really.  Our moral umbrellas will probably get most of us killed.  We have them because another organ evolved to find dinner.

I was thinking about your statement again. I'm wondering how it accounts for people having reasoning capacities that seem specific to norms? For example, evidence suggests that children and adults are better at reasoning about deontic conditionals (what one may or must not do) than indicative conditionals (more or less the truth of a statement). The tendency in children is to look for violations in deontic conditions and confirmations in indicative conditionals (Cummins, 1996). It seems strange to treat norms and morals as secondhand when reasoning about them appears to take center stage.


Reference: Cummins, D. D. (1996a). Evidence of deontic reasoning in 3- and 4-year-olds. Memory and Cognition, 24, 823–829

[energyBeing22]

I thought we've already discussed this?

Morality is what I say is right.
Immorality is what I say is wrong.

Well... No, I don't accept that at all.

("we" haven't discussed but This is a discussion I'm eager to have will anyone who wants.  Newbie here)

[no one]

I decide what is right, and what is wrong! It's a very acceptable stance.

[Acrobat]

I decide what is right, and what is wrong! It's a very acceptable stance.

What’s your decision on the holocaust? Is it right or wrong? And when did you make that decision.

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

I decide what is right, and what is wrong! It's a very acceptable stance.

What’s your decision on the holocaust? Is it right or wrong? And when did you make that decision.

Hey Acrobat!

Holocaust is always wrong.

That's kind of what the word means, after all.

Now... if you want to talk about the flufty-puppy kins event, that's great as well.

Cheers.

[The Grand Nudger]

Meh, not really.  Our moral umbrellas will probably get most of us killed.  We have them because another organ evolved to find dinner.

I was thinking about your statement again. I'm wondering how it accounts for people having reasoning capacities that seem specific to norms?

There’s nothing specific about our capacity for reason.

As far as it being secondhand, there are two reasons for this. First, morality does not, strictly speaking, confer survival benefits. It often has a cost, instead. On top of that, full anatomical modernity preceded behavioral modernity by at least 100k years.

We were living as anatomically modern human beings for many, many generations before we started behaving in a recognizably human way. We were still working out the terms and staking properly basic positions as an area of then-current research as late as classical empire.

We don’t know what social mores early Homo sapiens had, if any, but we expect them to be very similar to other species with similar needs and living arrangements.

The referenced piece doesn’t have anything to say in support of moral reasoning being or having been a primary function, selected for in the development of the organ that achieves it. Its highly unlikely to have been the case, and all evidence points to the contrary.

That said, it does highlight something about modern populations, that you might see expressed in dissatisfaction with moral schemas here on the boards. We either naturally, or have been conditioned, to prefer simple deontology. Reasoning from a set rule, like the corner piece of a puzzle. Tell a person that moral realism doesn’t (and can’t) provide a simple itemized list of does and dont’s, and they throw their arms up. “What good is it, then?”.

It’s kind of fun to keep that in mind when we discuss our moral agency. It’s a patch. It uses systems designed for other things and prefers strait forward problem solving to the sort of introspection required for deep dives. When some nutbar shouts out to his god before pressing the doomsday button, he’s going to feel a deep sense of moral satisfaction in having discharged his sacred duty to do the right thing.

So, it may seem strange, to us, but what doesn’t seem strange about morality?

[John 6IX Breezy]

There’s nothing specific about our capacity for reason.  

As far as it being secondhand, there are two reasons for this.  First, morality does not, strictly speaking, confer survival benefits. It often has a cost, instead.  On top of that, full anatomical modernity preceded behavioral modernity by at least 100k years.

...

I think there are two important things to clarify here.

Firstly, I'm not sure what you mean by "there's nothing specific about our capacity for reason." Brains seem better able to reason about certain specific subjects more than others. For example, when reasoning from conditional syllogisms, it matters whether the conditionals are stated using abstract symbols or real-world examples; people are better judges of validity when real-world examples are used (Wason, 1966). In the previously cited paper, we saw that children are better at reasoning from deontic conditionals than indicative conditionals; leading us to believe there is something specific about our capacity to reason about them. In other words, it matters what we're reasoning about specifically. The opposite, which is to say we have a general-purpose rationality, is problematic. 

Secondly, concluding that morality is secondhand because it confers no survival benefits is not only questionable (meaning I would like to see the papers suggesting there is an absence of benefits) it also seem to fall into the criticized "adaptationist programme" (Gould & Lewontin, 1979). In other words, it overemphasizes adaptation and neglects other forces of evolution such as genetic drift that could be responsible for the emergence or conservation of such traits. Having no survival benefit is not a criteria for something being secondhand; not to mention I would imagine something could have a secondhand emergence, and provide benefits.


References: 
Wason, P. C. (1966). Reasoning. In B. Foss (Ed.),  New horizons in psychology (pp. 135–151). Harm ondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.
Gould, Stephen J., and Richard C. Lewontin. (1979) The spandrels of San Marco and the panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist Programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 205: 581–98.

[GrandizerII]

There’s nothing specific about our capacity for reason.  

As far as it being secondhand, there are two reasons for this.  First, morality does not, strictly speaking, confer survival benefits. It often has a cost, instead.  On top of that, full anatomical modernity preceded behavioral modernity by at least 100k years.

...

I think there are two important things to clarify here.

Firstly, I'm not sure what you mean by "there's nothing specific about our capacity for reason." Brains seem better able to reason about certain specific subjects more than others. For example, when reasoning from conditional syllogisms, it matters whether the conditionals are stated using abstract symbols or real-world examples; people are better judges of validity when real-world examples are used (Wason, 1966). In the previously cited paper, we saw that children are better at reasoning from deontic conditionals than indicative conditionals; leading us to believe there is something specific about our capacity to reason about them. In other words, it matters what we're reasoning about specifically. The opposite, which is to say we have a general-purpose rationality, is problematic. 

Secondly, concluding that morality is secondhand because it confers no survival benefits is not only questionable (meaning I would like to see the papers suggesting there is an absence of benefits) it also seem to fall into the criticized "adaptationist programme" (Gould & Lewontin, 1979). In other words, it overemphasizes adaptation and neglects other forces of evolution such as genetic drift that could be responsible for the emergence or conservation of such traits. Having no survival benefit is not a criteria for something being secondhand; not to mention I would imagine something could have a secondhand emergence, and provide benefits.


References: 
Wason, P. C. (1966). Reasoning. In B. Foss (Ed.),  New horizons in psychology (pp. 135–151). Harm ondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.
Gould, Stephen J., and Richard C. Lewontin. (1979) The spandrels of San Marco and the panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist Programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 205: 581–98.

How is arguing that morality is secondhand adaptationist? Isn't it the contrary? Or I'm misunderstanding? Haven't read the paper yet.

[John 6IX Breezy]

[quote="John 6IX Breezy" pid='1929009' dateline='1566783266']

How is arguing that morality is secondhand adaptationist? Isn't it the contrary? Or I'm misunderstanding? Haven't read the paper yet.

It depends on the reasons why it's being argued that it's secondhand. I could be misconstruing what GB is saying, but it seems to me he is taking an adaptationist approach. In other words, if morality had benefits for survival (an adaptation) he wouldn't call it secondhand. But because it doesn't (according to him) it is a secondhand emergence of something else that does benefit survival.

The emphasis on adaptation (it's presence or absence) is why I labeled it adaptationist.

[The Grand Nudger]

I mean exactly what I say. There’s nothing specific about our capacity for reasoning. The brain is capable of handling abstraction and manipulating symbols.

This makes it suitable for a wide range of problem solving, and the fact that some things fall in that range is completely unsurprising.

Some things would. OFC we would have preferences within that range.

There’s nothing, at all, in any of your reference material that supports the content of your posts. Only the observation that within that range, some types of moral problems conform to the framework of human contemplation better than others, in some cohort.

Again, ofc they would, but.....,.?

OTOH, we know.....know....that human beings haven’t always acted or thought the way we do now, and we know.....know.....that we were still coming up with vocab to even discuss the issue as little as a few thousand years ago.

Even if we placed the dawn of moral reasoning sometime between then and behavioral modernity, we’d still be short 100k, at least, on anatomical modernity. Do we think that all social animals have something functionally similar to a morality, yeah...sort of. We draw a line, and it may be a difference of degree rather than kind but it’s probably a good distinction. At least until we find something as conceptually ornate in some other species.

-and that state, is the state we expect humans to have been in from some time before full modernity.