RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
November 4, 2021 at 2:53 pm
(This post was last modified: November 4, 2021 at 3:11 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
That's why we have moral deontology. For the times when you need to know what to do, but don't have the time to figure that out.
It's an imperfect tool, but better than being completely unprepared. I know what I would need to do if I got smacked with a sucking chest wound to ensure that I wouldn't die and would get informed treatment before someone found my collapsed and unconscious body....for example.
Wouldn't want to have to ponder that shit in the moment.
That out of the way, you said something I think is interesting. Do you really think that moral decisions amount to a coin flip? That would suggest you had no moral intuitions at all (this, ignoring and not asserting the accuracy of those intuitions)? Pick some charged scenario, give me the moral pluses and minuses, presumed to be just about equivalent, as you see them? Or, in contrast, give me an example of something you think has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and explain why the presumption fails in that specific case?
I've staked this one out a few times, just so we don't have to worry about some aha or gotcha moment...but..I think that our moral intutions are as flawed as any of our intuitions..but look at the world around you as a product of intuition. Moral and otherwise. It's not exactly a low bar. My unaided human intuition can predict the location of a target beyond visual range and hit it while moving. Moving for it's life, even*. Our "intuiters" are highly developed, whatever else they are. That might seem abstract, but it informs my view on why we suppress dissent (even when we do so in error), for example.
*I;ve seen rounds fly in arcs where both the trace and the intended contact seemed to be moving together to the point of collision, of all of the paths they could take - I tend to intuit that a thing running will show me it's ass and not it's cheek - in the theater of mind. It transfixes me when it happens. IRL, video games, more abstract real world comparisons..you name it.
It's an imperfect tool, but better than being completely unprepared. I know what I would need to do if I got smacked with a sucking chest wound to ensure that I wouldn't die and would get informed treatment before someone found my collapsed and unconscious body....for example.
Wouldn't want to have to ponder that shit in the moment.
That out of the way, you said something I think is interesting. Do you really think that moral decisions amount to a coin flip? That would suggest you had no moral intuitions at all (this, ignoring and not asserting the accuracy of those intuitions)? Pick some charged scenario, give me the moral pluses and minuses, presumed to be just about equivalent, as you see them? Or, in contrast, give me an example of something you think has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and explain why the presumption fails in that specific case?
I've staked this one out a few times, just so we don't have to worry about some aha or gotcha moment...but..I think that our moral intutions are as flawed as any of our intuitions..but look at the world around you as a product of intuition. Moral and otherwise. It's not exactly a low bar. My unaided human intuition can predict the location of a target beyond visual range and hit it while moving. Moving for it's life, even*. Our "intuiters" are highly developed, whatever else they are. That might seem abstract, but it informs my view on why we suppress dissent (even when we do so in error), for example.
*I;ve seen rounds fly in arcs where both the trace and the intended contact seemed to be moving together to the point of collision, of all of the paths they could take - I tend to intuit that a thing running will show me it's ass and not it's cheek - in the theater of mind. It transfixes me when it happens. IRL, video games, more abstract real world comparisons..you name it.
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