Good and Evil

[IATIA]

There are dozens of documentaries that are intensely blurring the 'line' between animal and human. A dog that shakes hands again and again until a second one is brought by and fed treats for paw shaking. A couple of monkeys in a similar situation where one was fed a better treat and the first one threw a temper tantrum. I was watching a special on the Snub-nosed Monkeys of Shangri La and two babies were born to to separate mothers with one being cared for and the other abandoned. 'Dad' took over the care and other mothers helped to feed the baby.

[bennyboy]

I think you have given up the game right there.  Yes, people have feelings, but feelings are not knowledge.

Sure they are. Feelings are the experience of a state mediation between evolved motivations of a species and the environment. Positive and negative affect are literally expressions of our innate sense of good and evil.

 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.

That's what I said. A priori knowledge isn't "reason." You said that the idea of a priori knowledge was a way to "pretend that one's prejudices are based on reason." But I'm arguing that the a priori knowledge is not based on reason.

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.

As I said, I mostly agreed with what you said, except the idea that people who believe in a priori knowledge are engaged in begging the question. But based on your most previous post, I think you are mostly saying what I'm saying, so debating you would be counterproductive right now.

---

There are dozens of documentaries that are intensely blurring the 'line' between animal and human.  A dog that shakes hands again and again until a second one is brought by and fed treats for paw shaking.  A couple of monkeys in a similar situation where one was fed a better treat and the first one threw a temper tantrum.  I was watching a special on the Snub-nosed Monkeys of Shangri La and two babies were born to to separate mothers with one being cared for and the other abandoned.  'Dad' took over the care and other mothers helped to feed the baby.

Totally.  I think non-humans have an instinctive sense of right or wrong.  I'm not sure about fish or bugs, but birds and mammals show many human trains: anger at injustice and a sense of humor, for example.

[Mudhammam]

I feel like it's completely pointless to even attempt a discussion about morality if we concede that it has no basis in reason. All it will boil down to is "I feel this way," "I dislike that," and nothing could be more unproductive than a back and forth involving nothing but assertions that don't even carry the possibility of being assessed as correct or incorrect.

[Pyrrho]

I think you have given up the game right there.  Yes, people have feelings, but feelings are not knowledge.

Sure they are.  Feelings are the experience of a state mediation between evolved motivations of a species and the environment.  Positive and negative affect are literally expressions of our innate sense of good and evil.

...

Given how the discussion progressed, it seems strange to take such a position at this point, instead of having simply started with the claim that feelings are knowledge.  However, we can set that aside and get to the important bit.

Feelings can be contrary to each other, as, for example, one may feel like eating an unlimited number of brownies, and one may feel like one does not want to become fat.  Yet those feelings conflict, as one cannot eat an unlimited number of brownies and not get fat.  In Sophocles' play Antigone, there is a conflict of duty, where a man who has been judged a traitor to the state is to be left unburied, to be dishonored, and yet his sister (Antigone) has a familial obligation to bury her brother.  Here we have a woman with a desire to follow the law, which requires her to not bury her brother, and a desire to fulfill her family duty and bury her brother.  It is impossible to do both (which is the source of the tragic element of the play).  Although that is just a play, it illustrates very well the fact that people often have conflicting feelings.

That situation differs from knowledge.  Knowledge cannot conflict with other knowledge.  If there is a conflict in two purported pieces of knowledge, one knows that at least one of them is wrong.  For example, if we look at the claim that Anne Boleyn cheated on Henry VIII and committed adultery, and compare that with the claim that Anne Boleyn was ever faithful to Henry VIII, we KNOW that one of those has to be wrong.  Conflicts in knowledge are impossible, as one of the conflicting claims must be false.

In the case of feelings, there is no contradiction in having conflicting feelings, because feelings are not claims of fact.  Feelings are neither true nor false; one either has a feeling or one does not.  Even if one were "wrong" to have a particular feeling, one still has whatever feelings one has, and there is no contradiction in feeling like eating a brownie, while also feeling like not eating it (as, for example, one may not wish to be fat).  The suggested actions conflict, and it is impossible to do both actions, but the feelings themselves are both simultaneously possible.

Since conflicts in feelings are possible, feelings cannot be knowledge.

[Mudhammam]

Well that's cool, I typed out a long, thoughtful reply, hit post, and.... it didn't show up. Just gone. *sigh* Oh well. Carry on.

[*Deidre*]

No such thing as 'evil' as in...an outside force that possesses a person and causes him/her to act badly. People CHOOSE to do good or bad things in life, and sometimes religion is used as the scapegoat for their bad actions. And often gets the credit when the person does 'good' things.

In other news...atheists do good things ...just because.

[Pyrrho]

I feel like it's completely pointless to even attempt a discussion about morality if we concede that it has no basis in reason. All it will boil down to is "I feel this way," "I dislike that," and nothing could be more unproductive than a back and forth involving nothing but assertions that don't even carry the possibility of being assessed as correct or incorrect.

You are giving a false dilemma.  As has already been stated, morality is not simply a matter of personal preference.  Here is why:

@dahrling

before I can try to give my answer, can you say what you mean when you use the words "Good" and "Evil"? I can't say whether it is universal if I don't know what you mean by it.

That is an excellent question, which most people never really properly address.

I have my answer to that question, already given, which is Hume's answer to the question.  No one else, though, has expressed any interest in that answer in this thread.  Of course, if someone does not agree with Hume, one may come up with one's own answer to the question.  Hopefully, whatever answer one comes up with will somehow be relevant to the way the terms are commonly used, though since different people have different ideas on the subject, no matter what one comes up with, it will not perfectly match all of the ways the terms are used by various people.  But that looseness is explained in Hume's treatment of the subject.  The pure subjectivist approach does not fit as well with common use as Hume's treatment of this, as people do commonly distinguish between personal preferences and what is right and what is wrong.  If ethics were purely a matter of personal preference, then, because I like Mozart, I would be right in saying that people who dislike Mozart are immoral.  That, though, is not how one normally speaks, except as a joke.  And that is why the pure subjectivist approach should be rejected.

To quote Hume on this point:

When a man denominates another his enemy, his rival, his antagonist, his adversary,he is understood to speak the language of self-love, and to express sentiments, peculiar to himself, and arising from his particular circumstances and situation. But when he bestows on any man the epithets of vicious or odious or depraved, he then speaks another language, and expresses sentiments, in which he expects all his audience are to concur with him. He must here, therefore, depart from his private and particular situation, and must choose a point of view, common to him with others; he must move some universal principle of the human frame, and touch a string to which all mankind have an accord and symphony. If he mean, therefore, to express that this man possesses qualities, whose tendency is pernicious to society, he has chosen this common point of view, and has touched the principle of humanity, in which every man, in some degree, concurs. While the human heart is compounded of the same elements as at present, it will never be wholly indifferent to public good, [273]nor entirely unaffected with the tendency of characters and manners. And though this affection of humanity may not generally be esteemed so strong as vanity or ambition, yet, being common to all men, it can alone be the foundation of morals, or of any general system of blame or praise. One man’s ambition is not another’s ambition, nor will the same event or object satisfy both; but the humanity of one man is the humanity of every one, and the same object touches this passion in all human creatures.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/341#Hume_0222_563


That was quoted earlier in this thread already, along with some other related ideas, in the post at:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-33164-po...#pid934918



Additionally, you will find that in fact arguments about morality have a troublesome aspect about them, in that people very often do disagree, sometimes without it being possible to come to any agreement.  There are quite a few reasons for this problem, not least of which is the fact that people often disagree about the basis for morality.

If you are trying to persuade someone to a particular course of action, I find that using an Epicurean argument is often the most successful when dealing with people with diverse ideas on morality ("Epicurean" in the sense of following Epicurus, not in the typical sense of the word "epicurean" in English).  The reason being, whatever people claim to care about, and whatever they might actually care about, pretty much everyone cares about their own pleasure and pain, and so appeals to such matters is appealing to something of some importance to one's audience.

We can also see, in the quote above from Hume, why it is that individuals will often be difficult to persuade to be moral, because even though they may feel the relevant feelings, they have other feelings that may be stronger and the stronger feelings may lead to an action contrary to what is suggested by feelings of empathy.


Still, it is worth mentioning that there is more agreement about morality than there is disagreement.  This is somewhat obscured by the fact that one tends to notice the disagreements much more, as conflict naturally gets one's attention.  But just imagine if one disagreed with everyone all the time about morality.  One would pretty much be in constant conflict with everyone about everything.

[Neo-Scholastic]

No such thing as 'evil' as in...an outside force that possesses a person and causes him/her to act badly. People CHOOSE to do good or bad things in life, and sometimes religion is used as the scapegoat for their bad actions. And often gets the credit when the person does 'good' things.

In other news...atheists do good things ...just because.

On the flip side they are equally justified in saying it's okay to do bad things "for the fun of it."

[*Deidre*]

No such thing as 'evil' as in...an outside force that possesses a person and causes him/her to act badly. People CHOOSE to do good or bad things in life, and sometimes religion is used as the scapegoat for their bad actions. And often gets the credit when the person does 'good' things.

In other news...atheists do good things ...just because.

On the flip side they are equally justified in saying it's okay to do bad things "for the fun of it."

Atheists, you mean? Well...everyone makes choices. At least if atheists fuck up, they own it. They don't try to blame it on 'the devil,' etc.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Both Christians and atheists own their choices. The question you have not addressed concerns the universal validity (for all humans) of value judgements: whim or reason.