Good and Evil

[bennyboy]

Moral means the conduct necessary to maximally manifest a person’s potential.  

I like this definition, but it doesn't seem a popular one.

My own view of morality is that it is an attempt for the human part of the mind to engage in battle against the mammalian and pre-mammalian brains. In other words, to act on a world view and the ideas and long-range motivations that go with it rather than to act on the desire of the moment. For example, I could rape a girl and get sex right now; but my long-range view is one in which people don't shout "RAPIST!" at me, and in which I'm not in jail trying not to drop the soap.

I also like the list of the 7 deadly sins. This seems a pretty good list of those animal instincts which most often cause our pre-human brains to take over, and often to lead to damage to our attempts to mold the world and ourselves to good effect. For example, sex. There's nothing really wrong with it. But then you get caught up with some girl, quit college, get herpes. . . whatever. You wake up one day, and realize that the "you" that fucked your life wasn't the you who made and worked toward all those long-range dreams; it was just your monkey brain trying to find a target to ejaculate into. Totally not worth it.

[Pyrrho]

Moral means the conduct necessary to maximally manifest a person’s potential.  

I like this definition, but it doesn't seem a popular one.

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It isn't popular because it is practically meaningless.  One is potentially any number of things.  One could try to maximize one's potential as a mass murderer, or as a child rapist, or any other thing.  Somehow I doubt that many people are going to regard such maximization of potential as being moral.

Typically, what one adds to that sort of claim is some question-begging goal, and pretend that it is somehow objective for what one's "potential" is.

[Hatshepsut]

For example, sex.  There's nothing really wrong with it...

Perhaps not "wrong." But sex is hardly a benign feature of evolutionary history. It keeps the species going, but usually at the detriment of the individual. Such creatures as salmon literally die to get their rocks off. Within human societies, our freedom to choose partners for love and seek pleasurable self-fulfillment through sexual enactments of our own choosing is a recent phenomenon, going back no further than the 18th century in the Western world.

[Dystopia]

There is no universal definition of good and evil, it all changes with the dominant political ideas - Right now we have a concept of good that comes from liberalism and human rights, but after it ends (and it will) our concept of good and evil will drastically change and maybe thinks that are today unacceptable will become acceptable. Anyone who wishes to argue for a universal concept of good can only prove so claiming the existence of a higher source of morality, like god.

Also, I refuse this idiotic idea that for something to be illegal, immoral, unethical or "bad" it needs to hurt me or somebody else (read - It needs to point a gun to my head in practice) - Everything that exists in my society affects me by the mere virtue of its existence and it will continue to do so. If I broad my logic and rhetoric I can find ways to point out how everything and everyone can be harmful even if it doesn't look that way at first glance. Quite honestly, it's possible to reach a consensus on physical pain, but when it comes to psychological harm there is no consensus because everything I see on the street can potentially harm me (mentally)

[Hatshepsut]

No, emotions are not rational.  If we consider your example of fear, many times the fear is based on the possibility of something happening that one does not want....

We love our romantic Enlightenment terminology for thinking processes, but emotion must be just as rational as any other process that takes place in human brains. There's no essential difference between the tissues that generate emotion in the brain and those that generate "rational" thoughts. In fact, brain areas used for both kinds of thinking overlap to some degree. Therefore, the distinction between reason and emotion is artificial. We've separated them conceptually for our own convenience. I'm not opposed to making this distinction because it is after all useful sometimes. Just as long as we're aware that we have done so, and avoid reifying our concepts.

If we suspect something merely unwanted is impeding, our response isn't fear, but frustration or disappointment. It's true that we can fear bad things which haven't yet happened to us, such as fear of crime in a rough neighborhood, although that only shows we have foresight. "Instinct" is hardly so simple or "primitive" as it appears, especially for mammals; generating an instinctive behavior can require as many neural computations as solving a mathematical problem does. We just happen to pay more conscious attention to "rational" thought processes than to "instinctive" ones, and I dare say with a passionate elevation in prestige for the former.  

I will agree with your assertion than many or most of our ultimate goals stem from emotion rather than explicit logic, the latter which indeed admits of formal and informal fallacy. And with your skeptical view of the APA club, which I share: psychiatry is far overanxious to label any difference as a mental disorder. Yet there are people who clearly do suffer from disorders of mood and affect: schizophrenics, bipolar patients, and so on. These folks usually experience trouble managing their daily lives, tending to fall into self-destructive behavior patterns.  

I hold to the moderate realist position. I do not think, like Plato, Forms/Ideas have independent existence...

...while I'm not sure I have the sophistication to commit myself to a school of thought. Plato's forms thing is related to the question of whether mathematics is discovered or invented, where powerful arguments have come forth for both positions. I do believe that the utility of "form," or categorization if that's what it is, as a thinking tool declines as the objects under consideration get more complex. Forms work well in mathematics and for quarks and leptons in physics, but less well for erecting a ladder of human social ideals. I take a "naive" view and prefer avoiding specialized philosophical jargon whenever possible.

[Mudhammam]

   

[Pyrrho]

No, emotions are not rational.  If we consider your example of fear, many times the fear is based on the possibility of something happening that one does not want....

We love our romantic Enlightenment terminology for thinking processes, but emotion must be just as rational as any other process that takes place in human brains. There's no essential difference between the tissues that generate emotion in the brain and those that generate "rational" thoughts. In fact, brain areas used for both kinds of thinking overlap to some degree. Therefore, the distinction between reason and emotion is artificial. We've separated them conceptually for our own convenience. I'm not opposed to making this distinction because it is after all useful sometimes. Just as long as we're aware that we have done so, and avoid reifying our concepts.
...

That is the most ridiculous thing I have read in some time.  The areas of the brain in which people reason fallaciously are the same regions of the brain involved in valid reasoning.  That does not mean that fallacious reasoning is just as reasonable as valid reasoning.  But if you were right, then they would have to be equally reasonable.  Since that is obviously wrong, any thinking person can know that you are completely wrong in what you are claiming.

[AdamLOV]

No.  A dead animal is still an animal.

It is no longer animate, is it? Therefore, it is not an animal anymore; but rather, a pile of inanimate material, i.e. the corpse of an animal.

What if the materials that used to compose the dead, inanimate animal, are reanimated (i.e. in the case of crude oil)?
Then it would make sense to speak about the present absence (or absent presence) of inanimate, dead creatures that have been "resurrected", so to speak. In this case, their interests could be said to make an important difference. The truth of the matter is that contemporary society is built on reanimating and burning dead beings. The corpse, or rather, fossilized remains of a dead animal are therefore more than "piles of inanimate material".

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*in the case of the petrochemical industry

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If the wise choice were to consist in behaving according to one's own nature, then it is still incomprehensible why the survival of a human being should matter more than the self-replication of a virus.

If your point is that human life only has value to humans, then it is a trivial one. Questions about ethics only apply to creatures endowed with reason and the capacity to freely act upon their thoughts.

So as to really annoy believers in truth, I would also like to throw in a quote from Michel Foucault: "'Truth' is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, circulation and of operation of statements. 'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it. A 'regime' of truth.”

The Foucault quote makes no reference to the conformity of propositions with objective reality.  So in actuality, he’s only talking about how people use diction and grammar.  The quote says nothing whatsoever about knowledge.

Adam LOV introduced the question of whether essences are real in any meaningful sense…one can point to the sociological essentialism holding that traits like race, ethnicity, and gender are immutable. This essentialism was cited to help support colonialism and racial apartheid policies no longer considered ethical. We now hold that race, ethnicity, and gender are all social constructs.

You are correct to say that race, ethnicity and gender are social constructs. It does not follow from that fact that there is no such thing as human nature. The theory of evolution was used to justify eugenics, genocide, and social Darwinism. Those misapplications of the theory did not invalidate the theory of evolution.

…the fact that ethics evolve over time shows that whatever's "inside" situations of right and wrong isn't immutable, that is, it isn't a pure essence like "triangleness" is for triangles.

Scientific understanding also has evolved over time. People today have a much more accurate and precise understanding of objective reality than their predecessors. Just because it is easier to understand the nature of triangles (or electrons) doesn’t mean that something as complex as a human being doesn’t have an essential nature. It just takes more effort and discernment to uncover it. Understanding human nature will always be a work in progress, but if you abstract away all the accidental properties of something what remains are the essential properties without which a particular would cease to partake of the universal. With respect to people, the things that differentiate one human from the next, like skin color and sex, are accidental features. The common features shared by all humans are essential features, like rationality. The objectivity of moral judgment depends on keeping these distinct.

"Questions about ethics only apply to humans"? So its okay to abuse animals, keep them in conditions worse than slavery. All that lies outside of the realm of ethics. That is a rather extreme position. One could defend such anthropocentrism, it is true (most of philosophy and ethics has, to date, been anthropocentric), but there are many negative side-effects of keeping animals in conditions of abject misery. For instance, it has been shown that industrialized agriculture contributes to disease-propagation among those unfortunate farm animals integrated into an economic system that abuses living things to an astounding degree. To exclude any living thing apart from homo sapiens is not only the height of presumption, but also, pragmatically speaking, a dangerous folly that could have severe repurcussions for humanity as a species.

[Neo-Scholastic]

One could try to maximize one's potential as a mass murderer, or as a child rapist, or any other thing…Typically, what one adds to that sort of claim is some question-begging goal, and pretend that it is somehow objective for what one's "potential" is.

It takes time and repeated exposure to understand the terms and concepts of the Neo-Scholastic tradition. So even though I took great pains to elaborate I don’t fault your misunderstanding. To accurately form concepts, people must distinguish between essential attributes and accidental ones. So while it is true that humans have the potential to be rapists, it is an accidental property the same way that having been born in France or having the skill to hang-glide are accidental. None of those facts are relevant to what it means to be human.

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"Questions about ethics only apply to humans"? So its okay to abuse animals, keep them in conditions worse than slavery. All that lies outside of the realm of ethics. That is a rather extreme position.

No, because acting inhumane is by definition contrary what it means to be human.

[Pyrrho]

One could try to maximize one's potential as a mass murderer, or as a child rapist, or any other thing…Typically, what one adds to that sort of claim is some question-begging goal, and pretend that it is somehow objective for what one's "potential" is.

It takes time and repeated exposure to understand the terms and concepts of the Neo-Scholastic tradition. So even though I took great pains to elaborate I don’t fault your misunderstanding. To accurately form concepts, people must distinguish between essential attributes and accidental ones. So while it is true that humans have the potential to be rapists, it is an accidental property the same way that having been born in France or having the skill to hang-glide are accidental. None of those facts are relevant to what it means to be human.
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It is exactly as I have represented it.  You make up bullshit that you call "essential," and then tell people that they should live in accordance with what you make up.  It is pretend objectivity, and nothing more.

There is no reason to believe in "essences" (in the sense you are using the term).  It is a word-game, where one plays with how a word is used, and then one pretends that the language use determines how things are in the world.  Or in this case, one pretends how things should be in the world.