Morality from the ground up

[The Grand Nudger]

No, it's not rational, it's the runup to a nazi apologists thought droppings.  A society in which that was "moral" - by it's very nature, becomes the cause of immense suffering.  The premise necessarily contradicts the conclusion.

Why?  If suffering is the most important metric for mores, and if you can kill without causing suffering, then on what basis is the killing immoral?  If you say "by its very nature, it becomes the cause of immense suffering," then that is clearly not moral given the axiom that causing suffering is immoral-- so that wouldn't be allowed.  If, and only if, you could kill without causing much suffering, then would it be okay, or is there another metric (we know there is-- it's abstract ideas about the value of memories and so on).

You didn't -give- an example of killing without suffering.  You gave an example where a racist nationalist society found it moral to euthanize browns...and we've seen how that ends.  Spoiler alert: a whole lot of suffering.

That's some seriously low rent shit Benny, and I think you can do better.

[Amarok]

Why?  If suffering is the most important metric for mores, and if you can kill without causing suffering, then on what basis is the killing immoral?  If you say "by its very nature, it becomes the cause of immense suffering," then that is clearly not moral given the axiom that causing suffering is immoral-- so that wouldn't be allowed.  If, and only if, you could kill without causing much suffering, then would it be okay, or is there another metric (we know there is-- it's abstract ideas about the value of memories and so on).

You didn't -give- an example of killing without suffering.  You gave an example where a racist nationalist society found it moral to euthanize browns...and we've seen how that ends.  Spoiler alert: a whole lot of suffering.

That's some seriously low rent shit Benny, and I think you can do better.

Indeed benny is denying empirical evidence of what such a society leads to.

[The Grand Nudger]

Let's see if it sticks.  What if you killed a cow in such a way as it didn't suffer, Benny?  Then it's okay and moral, yes?  I mean..if you think that it;s okay and rationally moral in the case of a human being, gonna be the same for Bessie, surely?  

Now, let's ask ourselves a question.....is a society in which a cow can be killed humanely and ethically likely to lead to nazis?

[bennyboy]

You didn't -give- an example of killing without suffering.  You gave an example where a racist nationalist society found it moral to euthanize browns...and we've seen how that ends.  Spoiler alert: a whole lot of suffering.

No, I gave an example in which a person might remove someone for whom he holds little esteem, on the basis that he's not causing suffering. If he DOES cause suffering, then he's violating that axiom, so that case isn't taken into consideration.

That's some seriously low rent shit Benny, and I think you can do better.

I think you guys are special pleading. It's okay to kill animals but not people, because people's capacity for suffering is so much greater. However, given ANY scenario in which one might kill a person without causing them undue suffering, it's still wrong-- but that first argument is invalid in that case. So we need to move onto a modification, i.e. an additional metric. In fact, I've already suggested the next metric: that a lifetime of experience and memory in humans is considered important, not only their hedonic state during life or at the time of death.

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Indeed benny is denying empirical evidence of what such a society leads to.

The specific killing of an immigrant had a point, which has been missed by you guys. The point is that if (1) you don't see intrinsic value in someone's life, and (2) you do not cause them suffering, it's okay to kill them giving the axioms so far presented. So we need new axioms, or a bridge from the hedonic state idea to an actual moral code.

Nobody here thinks that killing an unknown immigrant is okay. My contention is that there's no reason not to kill people except that the idea of it makes us feel bad. The idea of murdering some dude in an alley way for no reason is very unpleasant. . . to us. But on what basis do we take feelings and make them moral axioms?

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Let's see if it sticks.  What if you killed a cow in such a way as it didn't suffer, Benny?  Then it's okay and moral, yes?  I mean..if you think that it;s okay and rationally moral in the case of a human being, gonna be the same for Bessie, surely?  

Now, let's ask ourselves a question.....is a society in which a cow can be killed humanely and ethically likely to lead to nazis?

If it's okay to kill an animal without causing suffering, then I'd say that Bessie, immigrants, and my Mom would all fall under that umbrella.  If there is something special about people which makes killing them extra wrong, then Bessie might be killed, but immigrants and my Mom should not be.  I don't think the capacity for suffering matters, though, because it's possible to bypass that capacity in humans (like foreknowledge of their impending death or whatever) simply by drugging them.

[Astonished]

You didn't -give- an example of killing without suffering.  You gave an example where a racist nationalist society found it moral to euthanize browns...and we've seen how that ends.  Spoiler alert: a whole lot of suffering.

No, I gave an example in which a person might remove someone for whom he holds little esteem, on the basis that he's not causing suffering.  If he DOES cause suffering, then he's violating that axiom, so that case isn't taken into consideration.

That's some seriously low rent shit Benny, and I think you can do better.

I think you guys are special pleading.  It's okay to kill animals but not people, because people's capacity for suffering is so much greater.  However, given ANY scenario in which one might kill a person without causing them undue suffering, it's still wrong-- but that first argument is invalid in that case.  So we need to move onto a modification, i.e. an additional metric.  In fact, I've already suggested the next metric: that a lifetime of experience and memory in humans is considered important, not only their hedonic state during life or at the time of death.

---

Indeed benny is denying empirical evidence of what such a society leads to.

The specific killing of an immigrant had a point, which has been missed by you guys.  The point is that if (1) you don't see intrinsic value in someone's life, and (2) you do not cause them suffering, it's okay to kill them giving the axioms so far presented.  So we need new axioms, or a bridge from the hedonic state idea to an actual moral code.

Nobody here thinks that killing an unknown immigrant is okay.  My contention is that there's no reason not to kill people except that the idea of it makes us feel bad.  The idea of murdering some dude in an alley way for no reason is very unpleasant. . . to us.  But on what basis do we take feelings and make them moral axioms?

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Let's see if it sticks.  What if you killed a cow in such a way as it didn't suffer, Benny?  Then it's okay and moral, yes?  I mean..if you think that it;s okay and rationally moral in the case of a human being, gonna be the same for Bessie, surely?  

Now, let's ask ourselves a question.....is a society in which a cow can be killed humanely and ethically likely to lead to nazis?

If it's okay to kill an animal without causing suffering, then I'd say that Bessie, immigrants, and my Mom would all fall under that umbrella.  If there is something special about people which makes killing them extra wrong, then Bessie might be killed, but immigrants and my Mom should not be.  I don't think the capacity for suffering matters, though, because it's possible to bypass that capacity in humans (like foreknowledge of their impending death or whatever) simply by drugging them.

For fuck's sake, dude, you're making gargantuan leaps here without taking a second to realize there is a tremendous fundamental difference between us and lower animals. Let's say an animal kills a human-is the animal aware of the nature of their action? Is it capable of participating in a moral discussion in which it can evaluate these things to the level which we can? Is it logical to hold a criminal trial, assess the animal's culpability, maybe find it not guilty by reason of insanity or mental incapability? You are fucking insane if you are putting them on the same level as us. Or should every veterinarian who's ever put someone's pet to sleep be charged with murder, what with all the Dr. Kevorkian controversy?

I get you're trying to make a point but you're using completely incompatible factors to draw a line somewhere, it's really not working.

[Angrboda]

I think it's natural to look for a unified factor underlying all of morality, I just don't think the abstract of 'harm' is it. Otherwise we would have a stronger natural inclination against killing animals that can suffer. I too look for a unified approach, but from a different angle. Jonathan Haidt has proposed that five major dimensions underly our moralistic reasoning. The question of harm, that of fairness, questions of authority, those of loyalty, and the question of ritual/conventional purity (aka 'sacredness'). With the exception of sacredness, these are all values whose norms orient us towards successful functioning within a group. As a social species, I believe we have evolved subconsciously derived values which, taken together, ensure our thriving as a social species. Our nature as a social species is a part of our niche in the environment. Individual humans would not be as successful as groups of humans, and surviving in groups requires proactive advocacy of things like authority and loyalty. (They also are of benefit in the child/parent relationship.) Rather than rely upon conscious thinking about one's situation to push forward these values, evolution has favored those who succeed in groups by favoring those who instinctively derived these values. Thus these values are essentially subconscious in origin, and no a priori reasoning about the benefits of these values can derive them. They are the result of the practical experiment of humans living in greater and less successful groups. That I believe is the uniform factor underlying morality.

When it comes to the question of why we don't have a natural inclination to conclude that killing animals that can suffer is wrong, then the answer is simple. Morality has, as its goal, the flourishing of humans in groups of humans. It isn't about harm qua harm across whatever animal can experience harm, it is human-centric in its origin and reason for existence. Thus we only get to concluding that harming animals is wrong by analogizing them to ourselves. Indeed, in that context the question of why harm of humans is morally significant at all is paramount. Why is harming humans a significant value to embrace? Arguing a sort of tit for tat reasoning about harm doesn't explain the peculiarities of our moral intuitions, that harming animals is not morally significant and harming humans is. It really doesn't explain the kind of pre-thought, intuitive nature of moral reasoning. Nor does it offer much argument for the evolutionary origin of it, or any other origin story. In that, harm to humans comes across as a disembodied value, arising out of nothingness (and collapsing back into nothingness upon inspection).

So I think a rational basis for morality can be found in our moral intuitions having evolved to further our flourishing as a social species. It isn't just one value, such as harm/empathy, but a cluster of values which benefited the animal that lived in groups because the group was stronger and fitter as a whole than any individual could be.

On the pragmatic side, I doubt this will remain as anything much stronger than a conjecture until more is known about how exactly moral reasoning operates in the brain, and that is quite a ways off. However, I think the contours of this theory are very consistent with the contours of morality as experienced by humans, and offers a plausible path toward explaining the development of such intuitions.

[bennyboy]

For fuck's sake, dude, you're making gargantuan leaps here without taking a second to realize there is a tremendous fundamental difference between us and lower animals. Let's say an animal kills a human-is the animal aware of the nature of their action? Is it capable of participating in a moral discussion in which it can evaluate these things to the level which we can? Is it logical to hold a criminal trial, assess the animal's culpability, maybe find it not guilty by reason of insanity or mental incapability? You are fucking insane if you are putting them on the same level as us. Or should every veterinarian who's ever put someone's pet to sleep be charged with murder, what with all the Dr. Kevorkian controversy?

I get you're trying to make a point but you're using completely incompatible factors to draw a line somewhere, it's really not working.

I don't think I'm making any assumptions at all. I'm trying to address axioms as they are presented. One is the capacity for suffering-- people have greater capacity to suffer, so their suffering matters more. I'm saying this can be discounted by controlling the environment in which moral/immoral acts take place.

You are now looking from the perspective of the moral agent-- someone with the capacity to understand and engage in right action. However, it seems to me that very much of our justice system involves those who consider themselves higher condemning those who are "lower" for their behaviors. For example, if a particularly stupid and easily angered man hurts someone, we will talk about mens rea, and if he can verbalize ANY understanding of right and wrong, we'll hang him for it. But it's obvious that some people are no more capable of controlling their impulses than chimps. It seems to me it's this condescending view of ourselves as better than others that leads to a very real dysfunction in applying moral ideas in real life. We have to identify WITH animals, as we are animals, if we are to arrive at a fair understanding of the moral impulse and the behaviors it leads to, I think. I think Jorg is saying something along those lines in the above post, but I'll answer that one a little later.

[The Grand Nudger]

@Jorg

Obviously a full appraisal of the entirety of the moral field (and particularly it;s origins and how we accomplish whatever moral calculations we intuitively make at the process level) will contain many things..but I have to ask, why do you think that we, a predatory animal, would have a stronger natural inclination against killing animals that suffer?  I can't imagine that, over the years, those who had a much -more- well developed sense of guilt over the deaths of animals would have been all that successful - particularly in comparison to the rest of us.  Personally, I find -any- natural inclination against killing animals that suffer...which we possess in spades, a bit of an outlier.

There aren't many remorseful mouths in the world.

[bennyboy]

So I think a rational basis for morality can be found in our moral intuitions having evolved to further our flourishing as a social species.  It isn't just one value, such as harm/empathy, but a cluster of values which benefited the animal that lived in groups because the group was stronger and fitter as a whole than any individual could be.

Does identifying this on a cognitive level immediately cause its dissipation? As soon as we see morality in this way, it seems the very next question is-- should we serve genetic fitness, or put our minds to the task of freeing ourselves from it?

[The Grand Nudger]

I certainly see no need to refer to biological fitness in my morality, regardless of whether or not that was it's origin.  Ultimately, we're trying to determine what is or is not right, and why - not what is or is not natural.