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May 14, 2012 at 11:04 pm (This post was last modified: May 14, 2012 at 11:12 pm by Angrboda.)
In response to the OP, I would suggest that a morals based on evolutionary psychology quickly runs afoul of Hume's is-ought fallacy. The fact that we display a set of morals as biological creatures does not mean that the morality we display is in fact moral. We can imagine a species similar to ours, but differing in certain moral judgements. Deciding whose morality should prevail reduces to speciesism. I'm fond of giving the example of reproductive strategy here. We are a K-reproductive strategy species, giving birth to few offspring and lavishing enormous resources on them. An r-reproductive species on the other hand reproduces in immense numbers and cares nothing for its offspring. As K-reproductive, we would consider it immoral for a couple to have a child and simply abandon it to the fates. Yet if we were an r-reproductive species, we wouldn't. But obviously there's nothing inherently more moral about the values of a K-reproductive species than an r-reproductive species. And this gets to the core of all such evolutionarily based moralities — they depend on the assumption that the prosperity of our species is a good, and only then from that value derive the consequence for an evolutionarily based ethics. But that initial assumption is purely arbitrary.
I must confess some sympathy for the evolutionary perspective as while my views on morality have their genesis in some ideas from computational neuroscience and incorporate similar elements, the fallout of which seemed to promise a means of transcending the is-ought fallacy, anymore I'm not so sure, as I seem to have run aground in like fashion. And anyway, I have not the luxury of time to explore these ideas further at this time. (I'm heavily involved in book clubs and discussion groups these days, leaving precious time for my own work — which usually ends up being spent on some bollocks like posting on forums or something.) So for now, my ideas on the foundations of morality remain incomplete.
In reference to the golden rule, I think it is making two mistakes. The first is, I think it is an example of G.E. Moore's naturalistic fallacy, being a case in which because a heuristic or rule seems to share the same properties as our moral intuitions unaided by the rule, we conclude that our moral intuitions are generated using the rule (or part of our judgements are). Even if I felt the golden rule was an exact mirror for our moral judgements, I would strongly suspect that our brains do not use a variant of the golden rule in generating our moral intuitions. Moreover, there's a logical problem here as well: how do we know that the golden rule accords with our moral intuitions without recourse to those intuitions to verify that this is the case; it would seem the intuition is primary, and its correspondance to the golden rule secondary, and perhaps merely coincidental. (Christians face a similar quandary with Euthyphro's dilemma and Cafeteria Christianity — how do you know which of God's rules to follow?) The other problem being that it assumes fairness as a value. The likely reason for this is that fairness results in tit-for-tat strategies being successful for a social species such as ourselves, thus allowing our species to prosper via individual cooperation and reciprocity. Again note how this depends on the specifics of our species biologically. Moreover, I suspect fairness and altruism are competitive moral values, neither being purely realizable unconstrained by the other; an appropriate moral judgement would then be a satisficing of two values, which a simple rule like the golden rule is simply not powerful to embody. Again, if you drop the arbitrary value that the success of our species is a good, the purpose of fairness and reciprocity becomes highly questionable, and without that, the golden rule ceases to exist.
For what it's worth, a week ago I was introduced to what I believe is termed subjective consequentialism, and that framework appears to ably resolve Violet Lilly Blossom's list of exceptions capably.
I like kılıç_mehmet's suggestion that a society is the proper level at which to examine morality. I'm convinced that truth qua truth is the property of the social group, not the individual. Social groups, by their nature of possessing normative standards, have much more reliable characteristics for arriving at useful truths than individuals. In a particular individual, a handful, or even a lot, of truth may be present, yet there is no reliable epistemological procedure for determining which of that individual's ideas are correctly held and which are mistakenly held (especially by the individual herself). Groups on the other hand, which usually have embedded epistemic procedures for arriving at truth over time, can be reliably depended upon to produce whatever passes for truth in the group (whether Turks, scientists, creationists, Raelians or whatever). In a similar vein, I'm coming to the conclusion that much of modern thinking corresponds to the example of Moore's naturalistic fallacy applied to morals: the mistaking of a rule which produces similar behaviors for the actual cause of those behaviors themselves. This leaves me with the default rules of political efficacy: might makes right (including of groups), and some form of social contract theory. (Political philosophy is not my field.) Unfortunately, kılıç_mehmet ignores a central point. It is the behavior and judgements of individuals which gives rise to the behavior of the group. Change the individual socially, mentally, or biologically, and the behavior of the group changes. So suggesting that morals should filter top-down, from the society to the individual, instead of bottom-up, from the individual upwards, would appear to be putting the cart before the horse. Individuals have genes and a local environment which determine their phylogeny; societies do not, and therefore a society is not constrained by morals, any morals. You can't get morality from a source that doesn't itself have it.
May 17, 2012 at 12:19 pm (This post was last modified: May 17, 2012 at 1:13 pm by Tempus.)
(May 14, 2012 at 11:04 pm)apophenia Wrote:
In response to the OP, I would suggest that a morals based on evolutionary psychology quickly runs afoul of Hume's is-ought fallacy. The fact that we display a set of morals as biological creatures does not mean that the morality we display is in fact moral. We can imagine a species similar to ours, but differing in certain moral judgements. Deciding whose morality should prevail reduces to speciesism. I'm fond of giving the example of reproductive strategy here. We are a K-reproductive strategy species, giving birth to few offspring and lavishing enormous resources on them. An r-reproductive species on the other hand reproduces in immense numbers and cares nothing for its offspring. As K-reproductive, we would consider it immoral for a couple to have a child and simply abandon it to the fates. Yet if we were an r-reproductive species, we wouldn't. But obviously there's nothing inherently more moral about the values of a K-reproductive species than an r-reproductive species. And this gets to the core of all such evolutionarily based moralities — they depend on the assumption that the prosperity of our species is a good, and only then from that value derive the consequence for an evolutionarily based ethics. But that initial assumption is purely arbitrary.
I must confess some sympathy for the evolutionary perspective as while my views on morality have their genesis in some ideas from computational neuroscience and incorporate similar elements, the fallout of which seemed to promise a means of transcending the is-ought fallacy, anymore I'm not so sure, as I seem to have run aground in like fashion. And anyway, I have not the luxury of time to explore these ideas further at this time. (I'm heavily involved in book clubs and discussion groups these days, leaving precious time for my own work — which usually ends up being spent on some bollocks like posting on forums or something.) So for now, my ideas on the foundations of morality remain incomplete.
In reference to the golden rule, I think it is making two mistakes. The first is, I think it is an example of G.E. Moore's naturalistic fallacy, being a case in which because a heuristic or rule seems to share the same properties as our moral intuitions unaided by the rule, we conclude that our moral intuitions are generated using the rule (or part of our judgements are). Even if I felt the golden rule was an exact mirror for our moral judgements, I would strongly suspect that our brains do not use a variant of the golden rule in generating our moral intuitions. Moreover, there's a logical problem here as well: how do we know that the golden rule accords with our moral intuitions without recourse to those intuitions to verify that this is the case; it would seem the intuition is primary, and its correspondance to the golden rule secondary, and perhaps merely coincidental. (Christians face a similar quandary with Euthyphro's dilemma and Cafeteria Christianity — how do you know which of God's rules to follow?) The other problem being that it assumes fairness as a value. The likely reason for this is that fairness results in tit-for-tat strategies being successful for a social species such as ourselves, thus allowing our species to prosper via individual cooperation and reciprocity. Again note how this depends on the specifics of our species biologically. Moreover, I suspect fairness and altruism are competitive moral values, neither being purely realizable unconstrained by the other; an appropriate moral judgement would then be a satisficing of two values, which a simple rule like the golden rule is simply not powerful to embody. Again, if you drop the arbitrary value that the success of our species is a good, the purpose of fairness and reciprocity becomes highly questionable, and without that, the golden rule ceases to exist.
For what it's worth, a week ago I was introduced to what I believe is termed subjective consequentialism, and that framework appears to ably resolve Violet Lilly Blossom's list of exceptions capably.
I like kılıç_mehmet's suggestion that a society is the proper level at which to examine morality. I'm convinced that truth qua truth is the property of the social group, not the individual. Social groups, by their nature of possessing normative standards, have much more reliable characteristics for arriving at useful truths than individuals. In a particular individual, a handful, or even a lot, of truth may be present, yet there is no reliable epistemological procedure for determining which of that individual's ideas are correctly held and which are mistakenly held (especially by the individual herself). Groups on the other hand, which usually have embedded epistemic procedures for arriving at truth over time, can be reliably depended upon to produce whatever passes for truth in the group (whether Turks, scientists, creationists, Raelians or whatever). In a similar vein, I'm coming to the conclusion that much of modern thinking corresponds to the example of Moore's naturalistic fallacy applied to morals: the mistaking of a rule which produces similar behaviors for the actual cause of those behaviors themselves. This leaves me with the default rules of political efficacy: might makes right (including of groups), and some form of social contract theory. (Political philosophy is not my field.) Unfortunately, kılıç_mehmet ignores a central point. It is the behavior and judgements of individuals which gives rise to the behavior of the group. Change the individual socially, mentally, or biologically, and the behavior of the group changes. So suggesting that morals should filter top-down, from the society to the individual, instead of bottom-up, from the individual upwards, would appear to be putting the cart before the horse. Individuals have genes and a local environment which determine their phylogeny; societies do not, and therefore a society is not constrained by morals, any morals. You can't get morality from a source that doesn't itself have it.
Well said. I don't have a flawless grounding for my morality. I start with the assumption happiness is being aimed for with morality. It's somewhat vague, but it is a starting point. It's also practical because it's a goal / desire shared by most humans and, it would seem, most sentient beings (that we're aware of) to be happy. I currently think it necessary to make an initial assumption or else nothing can be achieved. If we remove any goals for morality (which in turn would be extrapolated from those base assumptions such as "happiness should be valued") we simply end up with "you ought to do X" completely detached from any sort of reason. Why ought we do X? A "should" or an "ought" is only meaningful in a specific context, ie; "we should not torture children if we're interested in their psychological and physical well-being" rather than just "we should not torture children". The latter makes no sense unless you're assuming their well-being is something that should be preserved (which I am aware you highlighted). Anyhow, that's certainly not to say that once the assumption is made that happiness ought to be valued it's smooth sailing from there on. Happiness would also need to be defined.
Personally, I don't have a problem with making an assumption provided that it is 1) recognised as an arbitrary assumption and 2) the smallest possible assumption made with the most power / flexibility to inform choices. That's all I really had to add - I agreed with basically everything you said. It's quite problematic determining what to value because one inevitably ends up using what they value to decide what they should value - it's groundless whichever way it's cut.
kant. Humanistic normative ethics are the only real way forward and his championing of moral autonomy is genuinely my greatest sympathy with kant, despite initial impressions it's a great idea. I find myself sat in his corner in most philosophical dualities
(May 17, 2012 at 2:59 pm)liam Wrote: kant. Humanistic normative ethics are the only real way forward and his championing of moral autonomy is genuinely my greatest sympathy with kant, despite initial impressions it's a great idea. I find myself sat in his corner in most philosophical dualities
As I understand Kant's morality is primarily based on the concept of duty. Can you elaborate more on that theme?
there are two types of duty, those we must do and those we ought to. If we deny those we must do we are acting immorally and it would be MORE moral to do those we ought to than to not do them (for example, im not immoral for allowing people to hurt each other but i may be more moral if i can stop them without breaking any of the 'must' duties. Basically if i do stop it im better than if i dont).
This also leads to the categorical imperative:
universality- if it'd be ok for everyone to do it everytime they were in that situation it's probably okay
Autonomy- we must treat all people as 'ends and not means', so no manipulation of people ever.
Sapere aude- We must act from our own morality, not religious dogma or what other people think is right (kinda contradictory when you conisder he says we cant perform immoral acts but it still works.)
(May 17, 2012 at 4:02 pm)liam Wrote: well he breaks it down like this:
there are two types of duty, those we must do and those we ought to. If we deny those we must do we are acting immorally and it would be MORE moral to do those we ought to than to not do them (for example, im not immoral for allowing people to hurt each other but i may be more moral if i can stop them without breaking any of the 'must' duties. Basically if i do stop it im better than if i dont).
This also leads to the categorical imperative:
universality- if it'd be ok for everyone to do it everytime they were in that situation it's probably okay
Autonomy- we must treat all people as 'ends and not means', so no manipulation of people ever.
Sapere aude- We must act from our own morality, not religious dogma or what other people think is right (kinda contradictory when you conisder he says we cant perform immoral acts but it still works.)
Ok, let's see them one by one.
The basis of categorical imperative is that "for a particular goal a particular action must be taken". For example, to quench thirst, you must drink. Kant appears to derive universality from this - basically saying that since these statements are true everywhere, the moral statements must be as well.
However, neither of that seems to be necessarily true. For example, generally, in order to survive, you must eat food. However, if the only food around you is poisonous, then in order to survive, you must not eat food. Thus, the argument that every moral action must stand the test of universality is not justified.
Another argument against universality would be that Kant considered morality to be derived from rationality, thus making it like science. Thus, his argument that an action taking place in one set of circumstances is moral if it is not contradictory to consider it taking place in every set of circumstances, is like saying, a reaction taking place under some conditions must also take place under all conditions. As we know, that's incorrect. The universality, if any, should be regarding a principle or a rule - not an action.
Next comes autonomy. This one I can get behind, but with same caveats as above. If another person is the "ends" and that end requires manipulation, then it would be contradictory not to manipulate.
Finally, we are not acting form our own morality if we simply accept his statements as true without judgment. Did he have anything to say about that?
well firstly, to say that we must take certain actions for certain goals he meant that we must obey duty. The duty of a human is not to kill another and this is universally true, murder IS bad. The analogy you draw from is true but Kant was not saying that everyone must act in a particular way in every given situation, it's a lot more liberal than that, rather he would say that there are certain ways we definitely SHOULDN'T act. Besides, eating is generally a very neutral act and in this situation we might disregard it as simply a circumstance which has no moral or immoral option. If you were to eat the poisonous food this would not necessarily suggest that every should eat poisonous food, but rather that when placed in a position of poison vs starvation they would make this decision. But i concede that it is an interesting issue.
But, for Kant, morality was derived from the rationality of duty, we may rationally assert that we should not ever kill another person because this is a rationally bad action, thus we have rationally prescribed a morality to this situation that is objective and not from the individual's perceptions but rather their rationale. Yes, it's untrue that reactions don't necessarily occur the same under all conditions but that is entirely different and that argument would compare the noumenological to the phenomenological, a comparison that seems generally illogical as we cannot expect an idea to exist by the same restrictions that an atom does, it's simply not necessary. The universality is a rule on how to act, was that unclear?
Admittedly, and Kant concedes that so long as the interest is that person's well-being then we may manipulate them towards their own interests but this is a rare situation and what Kant hoped to put across here is that the person is a person in themselves and, as such, is not subject to your desires if these desires are not the desire to be good to them. if that makes sense?
As i stated, this is somewhat true but what he states is that we should simply act witha strong enough sense of moral conviction that we do not draw on religious morality or that of others to make our decisions. What Kant provides us with is not the actual moral decision but rather the framework by which to act, setting down certain rules but otherwise remaining generally persuasive and not dogmatic. Granted he does contradict himself slightly but as mentioned before this is for the good of those he intends to influence and not for his own agenda, thus it is ok.
May 18, 2012 at 5:56 pm (This post was last modified: May 18, 2012 at 5:58 pm by Tempus.)
(May 18, 2012 at 5:01 pm)liam Wrote: The duty of a human is not to kill another and this is universally true, murder IS bad.
A bare assertion. Murdering humans is only bad if you assume human life is inherently valuable. Without that assumption, how do you come to the conclusion human life is valuable?
(May 18, 2012 at 5:01 pm)liam Wrote: well firstly, to say that we must take certain actions for certain goals he meant that we must obey duty. The duty of a human is not to kill another and this is universally true, murder IS bad. The analogy you draw from is true but Kant was not saying that everyone must act in a particular way in every given situation, it's a lot more liberal than that, rather he would say that there are certain ways we definitely SHOULDN'T act. Besides, eating is generally a very neutral act and in this situation we might disregard it as simply a circumstance which has no moral or immoral option. If you were to eat the poisonous food this would not necessarily suggest that every should eat poisonous food, but rather that when placed in a position of poison vs starvation they would make this decision. But i concede that it is an interesting issue.
But, for Kant, morality was derived from the rationality of duty, we may rationally assert that we should not ever kill another person because this is a rationally bad action, thus we have rationally prescribed a morality to this situation that is objective and not from the individual's perceptions but rather their rationale. Yes, it's untrue that reactions don't necessarily occur the same under all conditions but that is entirely different and that argument would compare the noumenological to the phenomenological, a comparison that seems generally illogical as we cannot expect an idea to exist by the same restrictions that an atom does, it's simply not necessary. The universality is a rule on how to act, was that unclear?
It is the "rationality of duty" that Kant has failed to justify. What he is aiming for is both universality and rationality simultaneously, but he is unable to justify them in that way. To be precise, what he is claiming that his ideas and goals are rational under all circumstances - such as killing is bad - without actually giving any rational justification for that. them.
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