Good and Evil

[Pyrrho]

There is no a priori knowledge of "the good."  That is just nonsense.  It is a way that people try to beg the question in an argument, to pretend that one's prejudices are based on reason.  

There is no evidence of any kind that "something more" is going on as the basis for morality than that beings feel about things, and so those things are important to them.


Indeed, the whole idea that we somehow need some awareness of some metaphysical entity called "the Good" is absurd.  Since we do not know of it, it is unimportant for our actual moral practice.

Phyrro, I think your ideas pretty closely mirror mine.  However, I want to play devil's advocate on a couple of questions.

First of all, is a priori knowledge equivalent to reason?  Why would claiming a priori knowledge be basing prejudices on reason?  

I could argue that as people we DO have a priori knowledge of what is good or evil TO US, via feelings we had as children.

I think you have given up the game right there.  Yes, people have feelings, but feelings are not knowledge.  The position I am advocating is that people have feelings, due to what they are, and it is a proper subset of those feelings that are the source of morality.

 For example, almost every child is upset when other children are shown favor.  This quality is so common among people that I'd say it's a priori on a species level, i.e. that humans evolved ALREADY having the sense that seeing a sibling favored is evil.  There are other ideas which I'd say have been intrinsic to the species since before it evolved: love of family, fear of death, and a sense of biological satisfaction via sex, food, etc.

Many of those desires are shared with quite a range of animals.  What you are describing is more properly called "instinct" than reason.

 All these are so common to so many members of the species that I'd say those without them are exceptional: and depending on how they behave, they are likely to be seen either as monsters or as saints, as heroes or villains.  But their's enough commonality in human behaviors, especially in infancy, that we can rationally objectivy those behaviors, and the feelings that motivate them, to an objective truth: "Mother's milk is good for babies."

That being said, it is only through feelings that we learn how we are programmed to feel.  And (many believe), it is only through the objective function of the brain that one has subjective feelings.  Therefore what is objective is objective, and what is subjective is also said to be no more than an awareness of part of the functioning of the objective.  The later I would tentatively call a priori knowledge, because it comes from one's human-species nature rather than from one's ego.

In other words, the subjective nature of our moral ideas, and even their variability from person to person, doesn't mean good and evil are not objective-- it just means that they are exactly as complex as our species evolution and existing membership.

The basis for morality seems to go deeper than just being human.  You might be interested in:

http://www.livescience.com/26245-chimps-...rness.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3690609/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...rness.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...141151.htm

We seem to share a sense of fairness with other primates.

But none of this suggests that it is based on reason.  People feel as they do, largely due to evolutionary forces, but their feelings are not knowledge.  If you think about it, social animals need some way of cooperation, some motivating force to get them to cooperate.  Otherwise, it is every man for himself (as it were), and, for many species, that would not promote the survival of the species as well as cooperation does.

Indeed, the fact that we do seem to share the foundations of morality with other animals strongly suggests that morality cannot be based on reason.  It is the way we feel, due to what we are.  But these feelings do not tell us of some external truth about morality; we simply have such feelings.  We do not thereby see into a mysterious realm of abstract ideas; we simply have feelings that influence our behavior.