Morality quiz, and objective moralities

[Edwardo Piet]

@ Rob

Well not everyone has to agree how something is defined.

If some nutjobs wanted to define "health" as something that had nothing to do with health, that wouldn't change the study of what is medically healthy and unhealthy.

I'm saying that once morality and ethics is at the very least defined as being about the suffering and well being of conscious creatures, then some things are objectively more and less immoral based on that. At least in principle this could be studied just like health can.

To paraphrase Harris "If words like "good" and "bad" mean anything they mean at the very least staying away from the worst possible misery for everyone. If you think "good" and "bad" don't have anything to do with that, then I don't know what you're talking about."

So basically Harris doesn't need to prove that what is good and bad has anything to do the suffering and well being of conscious creatures, he is assuming that as his starting point. That doesn't make it any more epistemically subjective than it does to assume the definition of health as our starting point. In principle there are right and wrong answers to what is healthy and what is unhealthy based on the definition, and if morality and ethics get defined to be about the well being and suffering of conscious creatures, then there are right and wrong answers to what is good and bad based on that definition.

Theists who then defined morality as being "It's about what God wants even if everyone suffers horribly and there is a massive decrease in well being for everyone permanently. Morality is about what God wants even if it leads us to the worst possible misery for everyone."

That would be the equivalent of saying "God doesn't have to be moral" and to define that as "moral" would be the equivalent of saying:

"Health is about what God wants even if everyone has a horrible disease and doesn't ever take any medication when they need it. Even if everyone becomes extremely ill and there is a massive decrease in wellness for everyone permanently. Health is about what God wants even if it seems to lead us to the worst possible healthiness for everyone: If God gets what he wants, our health is good."

The way I see it, any time anyone ever talks about something being "good" or "bad" it's about what people value and when it's about what people value it's relevant to their well being and suffering. Any time something is considered horrible or awful it involves suffering and people who say "Goodness is whatever God says it is" are basically redefining what "good" and "bad" mean.

[Pizza]

"Those who claim that morality is not essentially about the happiness or misery of creatures are not talking about morality, plain and simple. If someone tells me that being satisfied with one's past, present, or future is not a good everyone hopes for, or that the very idea of happiness is not demonstrably better in proportion to its opposite, they don't understand these terms, and they're likely just not being honest."

I seriously doubt Kantians, natural law theorists, ideal utilitarians, virtue ethicist and preference utilitarians are all liars.

[robvalue]

Good points, thank you all.

I've probably been seriously over-thinking it and making it needlessly complex.

I hope the quiz at least is a fair representation of how morality works, and you can see from it that I totally agree morality is either about wellbeing or else it's codswollop.

[Mudhammam]

I seriously doubt Kantians, natural law theorists, ideal utilitarians, virtue ethicist and preference utilitarians are all liars.

As do I. Which is why you'll find that they all recognize the value of well-being (with respect to humans).

[robvalue]

A couple more thoughts for anyone not utterly tired of my drivel:

It is important to make the distinction between discussing an individual and their personal sense of morality, and what appear to be societal norms. Unless this is made clear, people can be talking at completely cross purposes. The norms represent only a general trend, and no particular person necessarily agrees with any of it in that society.

As far as Harris goes and his landscaping, I'm happy to agree that we simply define morality to be analysing the effects of actions upon wellbeing. I'll agree with him that if someone is defining it any other way, I'm not interested. Not so much that I would tell them that they are "wrong", but that they are using the same word to mean something unrelated to what I mean by it. If I was to have a discussion with such a person, that is where going back to absolute fundamentals is important. This only ever happens, in my experience, with (some) religious people and a very small minority of the remainder. People without empathy, for example, may find the whole thing utterly bizarre and far from obvious. Unfortunately religion seems to sometimes teach that empathy itself is something of a conspiracy theory, ridiculous though that sounds.

A very weird argument I've had a few times though is where a religious person will totally agree with me regarding empathy, but will then say (not in so many words) "but we might not have agreed and so there must be some other explanation". But if we didn't agree, we'd no longer be talking about the same subject, as in the above paragraph. So of course the discussion would then be different.