Why do we need morals?

[Darkstar]

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, I suppose that biological imperatives don't have any objective value in and of themselves, only towards serving the ultimate goals of the organism (i.e. living).

When conflict arises between two organisms, the one of which depending upon the others death for it's own survival...what do we do? Biology dealt us a shitty hand in solving this one, frankly.

I think one can act in a way that isn't affected by self interest, but that may be evolved (or socially evolved). If one sacrifices him/herself to save ten, that confers a survival advantage on the species, even though is wasn't so fortunate for the selfless person.

We could playtest this notion all day long - the example you offered, for example. The guy didn't want to be the hero? Being the descendants or relatives of the hero doesn't confer an advantage? That's ignoring that even though you may think of yourself as a discrete and complete being, your dna - if it could conceive of anything, would call you a survival suit. It doesn't care if you die, so long as it survives- and if sacrificing one suit saves ten suits, that's a unilaterally self interested motivation.

Well, I suppose it would then depend on what constitutes a "good" reason. If the subject decides that the fact he doesn't feel that murder is wrong makes it right, there is obviously a serious problem, even though he may technically have a reason (but not one most people would consider valid).

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You bring up a valid point, but this returns to what I said before: how do we know that our subjective goal is a good one, and what would such a goal be? Could it be, perhaps, to reduce human suffering, promote fairness, and protect life? (Given that all life deems suffering as bad...unless they are heartless of sadistic, that people have an innate sense of fairness*, and that all organisms strive to live)

That's the beauty of it, we don't have to uniformly decide whether or not it's a "good" goal, whether or not it has objective value - we only have to agree to strive for it (and we can state definitively that it's open to revision). What would such a goal be for you, we could tally up those goals between us and start working on the ones we share firstly. I doesn't sound so difficult, does it?

[Darkstar]

[The Grand Nudger]

For the species, that would be self-interested, just not for an individual. I think the whole altruism thing evolved out of the self interest of the species, even if it may act against (or change) the interests of an individual.

The trouble with that is in identifying just where the "individual" resides, or why it would act in any specific way counter to or not concurrent with the aggregate that we can demonstrate (the collection of things affectionately referred to as "the individual"), but this cuts both ways, how can one be self interested if there is no self involved? But I'd better calm down...before I rattle Apos dinner bell..

I guess it just seems to me like there should be some way to tell when a goal is obviously off track, other than asking people's opinions. One would think that there would be some criterion by which a goal could be analyzed (i.e. reduce suffering, preserve life and fairness), but of course this would still be open to interpretation, it would have to be, as falliable humans are implementing it and there is no objective way to quantify these things.

Well, I mean.."it seems that there ought to be" isn't any indicator that there is. That's what I was talking about when I mentioned wish thinking. I think, personally, that even if there were some objective morality that we could eventually discover or manufacture, having some quantifiable, goal based system would do a hell of alot of good in the interim - and as to the thread title, in that light one can wax on about all the reasons we might need this or find it useful. Similarly, I don't imagine that an absolute and objective morality would really be all that useful to us (and I positively demand that the tools we carry be useful). I'm of the opinion that we'd always find a need for qualifiers, ameliorating circumstances, exceptions. If this were true, then an objectve and absolute morality wouldn't be so entirely different from a pragmatic goal based one.

[Praetorian]

Legality and illegality are not directly interchangeable with morality and immorality, in our system.

Conflicting moralities are, historically, a focal point of conflict, but the confict itself in most of these cases generally arises from something other than morality. "These people are evil" seems to follow -after- we made the decision to go to war, as a justification, an excuse, but sometimes, granted, before or during the decision, as pretext.

Again, a goal based compromise would seem to offer some way to alleviate this. Of course, the goal sought after could be complete adherenece to one or the other sets of conflicting moralities, we find ourselves at an impasse.

Shoot em.

(these threads are always long winded, nothing wrong with that)

Law and morality are not directly interchangeable, but aren't a nation's and a community's laws based on the morals of it's residents? Even in a communist regime, the government still reflects on the beliefs of the majority. Otherwise you have riots and rebellion. Look at Star Wars .

The laws become open to interpretation as unexpected situations arise, which is why we have the system of legal precedent. Even then, laws can be changed.

I agree that large scale conflict can be resolved based on goals, but the basic culture to culture, in-group/out-group stuff is still very hard to resolve.

I will say that it's interesting that most western nations seem to be headed in the same direction after much thought is given. Abolishing the death penalty is a good example. One could logically make a case for objective values based on the concensus of thought process.

[The Grand Nudger]

Law and morality are not directly interchangeable, but aren't a nation's and a community's laws based on the morals of it's residents?

We certainly like to think so, or tell ourselves that, but praytell why is it okay to defraud someone in an MLM but not a ponzi scheme..whats the difference? Why do we have victimless crimes...and why are so many things we consider immoral not illegal? Haven't even touched on the effects of commerce and wealth on the modification of law.

I'd say that generally, law deals more with tangibles than morality does, separated from each other, anyway.

[Darkstar]

Well, I mean.."it seems that there ought to be" isn't any indicator that there is. That's what I was talking about when I mentioned wish thinking. I think, personally, that even if there were some objective morality that we could eventually discover or manufacture, having some quantifiable, goal based system would do a hell of alot of good in the interim - and as to the thread title, in that light one can wax on about all the reasons we might need this or find it useful. Similarly, I don't imagine that an absolute and objective morality would really be all that useful to us (and I positively demand that the tools we carry be useful). I'm of the opinion that we'd always find a need for qualifiers, ameliorating circumstances, exceptions. If this were true, then an objectve and absolute morality wouldn't be so entirely different from a pragmatic goal based one.

I don't think that an objective (i.e. well supported by reason, doesn't mean that it must be defined in a quantifiable way) need necessarily be absolute. One could say "it is generally wrong to kill", and this statement could be agreed upon, even though there is the qualifier "generally". I think that for almost any moral rule one can imagine an exception to it if they try hard enough. The existence of qualifiers and exceptions doesn't IMO make the system of morals weaker, but in fact makes them stronger. The exceptions are going to be there, whether one recognizes this or not.

Ultimately, moral rules are applied on a situational basis in reality, so, one might think, these exceptions would come naturally (lying to protect Jewish people during WWII, for example, would be perfectly moral). The only thing that needs to be objective is a starting metric. Life has value, living things want to avoid suffering (we can tell it is bad only from our subjective experience, but that is still important), and most people have an innate sense of fairness. Knowing these three things, what do they mean, and what else can we conclude? (And what other metrics might we invoke?)

[Praetorian]

I'm not saying our laws are perfect, or even effective, but they are an attempt at solidifying what we're talking about.

@Darkstar, I'd like to explore that above statement, "life has value." This is one I've struggled to find an answer to, as I've stated in my solace thread. I find the usual explanations to be rather circular...life has value because we are alive. We have an instinct to stay alive, and we can project that instinct onto other people and animals, which is why I care about my cat. But the value of life is fleeting, because I love meat, and would kill an animal for that meat. So to say life has value lacks substance; we need to quantify the value it has for us individually.

[littleendian]

But the value of life is fleeting, because I love meat, and would kill an animal for that meat. So to say life has value lacks substance; we need to quantify the value it has for us individually.

That I believe is because morality always has an inside and an outside, an "in-group" and an "out-group", the "self" and the "other". The one is life worth living, the "other" is life that must serve the benefit of the "self", however that happens to be defined that day. Where we draw the line of "self" has been historically arbitrary, it was drawn between Europeans and the wild people of Africa/Asia, it was and is drawn between Christians and Muslims, it was drawn between whites and blacks, it was drawn between Europeans and Native Americans, and it was drawn between arians and non-arians. All with terrible outcomes.

[Praetorian]

That is probably the root cause of every conflict between humans that has ever occurred. The lines have become blurred because our perceived worlds have expanded so quickly.

On the meat issue, it seems the conflict is between coexisting groups of human culture...one that extends their in-group to include most animals and one that only includes a few (like dolphins).

I guess I would revise the statement, "life has value." to say, "the well-being of our in-group has value."