RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
November 5, 2021 at 9:27 am
(This post was last modified: November 5, 2021 at 9:49 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Why intervene in a naturalistic system? Do you mean, why do we intervene in the resolution of conflicts with a moral import? All sorts of reasons. Maybe some of us are just dooers, too, compulsive intervention. We may also have something like a low tolerance for particulars evils, I guess?
I'm really in the dark as to what moral interventions you think have led to climate change being a bigger problem? Similarly, when discussing the ambiguity you see, you appear to be referencing practical..not moral, ambiguity. As in, you know the moral outcome™ - which is the least loss of life or the most help......you're just not sure what doing it would look like. The nuts and bolts of how we arrive at it, and the very real concern (but only if we do..indeed..have a moral intuition or moral fact here) that what we do may have the opposite effect. The ambiguity itself appears to come down to changing circumstances and facts..but facts and circumstances cn and do change, and any system based on them will change with them. Same way that pissing in a stream would be immoral back when people were drawing their water directly from it..whereas today..not so much, even though pissing in someone's glass would be. The best we can do is try to keep up with those facts and circumstances as they come to us and tailor our conclusions and our efforts to them, right?
I did a quick google search..this the book?
ital to point out a contended natural fact
That sounds as immoral as pissing in someone's glass would be. What do you think?
In fact, in light of that, I think I have a fun thought experiment that might directly answer one of your questions. Or, rather, give you an opportunity to directly answer it yourself with respect to your moral intuitions (or to moral fact,..whichever).
Imagine a world...exactly like this world. People are suffering, the climate is being destroyed, there's just a shitload of work to do and all of it is hard. Exactly like this world except for one respect. In that world..we're doing something about all of it.
Unbeknownst to you or anyone else, however, in just ten years, a giant asteroid will not only wipe humanity off the face of the earth, it'll wipe earth of the face of the solar system.
Does this fact change what the moral thing to do is, for that next ten years? Everyone, absolutely everyone is going to die in ten years. Does that mean that we no longer have a moral obligation to reduce suffering and repair damage for those ten years we have left? If we knew the asteroid was going to hit, would it mean that? We could ask the same question in the individual case, no imaginary worlds, no asteroid, this life. Does knowing for certain that I'm going to die, and that everyone else I know will one day die, and that all of those future people I'll never know no matter what we do will all, also, die..change my moral responsibilities while I'm alive? Is it necessary for a thing to be "the right thing to do" that it yields our intended outcome and we have absolute certainty that it will work...and, be persistent?
I'm really in the dark as to what moral interventions you think have led to climate change being a bigger problem? Similarly, when discussing the ambiguity you see, you appear to be referencing practical..not moral, ambiguity. As in, you know the moral outcome™ - which is the least loss of life or the most help......you're just not sure what doing it would look like. The nuts and bolts of how we arrive at it, and the very real concern (but only if we do..indeed..have a moral intuition or moral fact here) that what we do may have the opposite effect. The ambiguity itself appears to come down to changing circumstances and facts..but facts and circumstances cn and do change, and any system based on them will change with them. Same way that pissing in a stream would be immoral back when people were drawing their water directly from it..whereas today..not so much, even though pissing in someone's glass would be. The best we can do is try to keep up with those facts and circumstances as they come to us and tailor our conclusions and our efforts to them, right?
I did a quick google search..this the book?
Quote:This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate is Naomi Klein's fourth book; it was published in 2014 by Simon & Schuster.[1] In it, Klein argues that the climate crisis cannot be addressed in the current era of neoliberal market fundamentalism, which encourages profligate consumption and has resulted in mega-mergers and trade agreements hostile to the health of the environment.[2]b-mine
ital to point out a contended natural fact
That sounds as immoral as pissing in someone's glass would be. What do you think?
In fact, in light of that, I think I have a fun thought experiment that might directly answer one of your questions. Or, rather, give you an opportunity to directly answer it yourself with respect to your moral intuitions (or to moral fact,..whichever).
Imagine a world...exactly like this world. People are suffering, the climate is being destroyed, there's just a shitload of work to do and all of it is hard. Exactly like this world except for one respect. In that world..we're doing something about all of it.
Unbeknownst to you or anyone else, however, in just ten years, a giant asteroid will not only wipe humanity off the face of the earth, it'll wipe earth of the face of the solar system.
Does this fact change what the moral thing to do is, for that next ten years? Everyone, absolutely everyone is going to die in ten years. Does that mean that we no longer have a moral obligation to reduce suffering and repair damage for those ten years we have left? If we knew the asteroid was going to hit, would it mean that? We could ask the same question in the individual case, no imaginary worlds, no asteroid, this life. Does knowing for certain that I'm going to die, and that everyone else I know will one day die, and that all of those future people I'll never know no matter what we do will all, also, die..change my moral responsibilities while I'm alive? Is it necessary for a thing to be "the right thing to do" that it yields our intended outcome and we have absolute certainty that it will work...and, be persistent?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
