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.

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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]

[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.