Morality without God

[vulcanlogician]

I guess I have a less negative view of the word "dogma." To me it meant just a set of guidelines or rules that we know to be unprovable -- committed to, rather than proved. But I guess it's more negative than I thought. 

To me, the word "dogma" has a very negative connotation. To me, it means beliefs we are supposed to accept without question. And any admirer of Socrates (one would think) would be uncomfortable with that notion.

"Dogma" as you've defined it sits slightly better with me. But I still don't like the idea of being committed to something unproven. I guess that most charitable example I can think of is "family"... that's something I feel I should be committed to even when such a commitment is perilous. But beliefs about society or morality? Hell no. I only want to commit to things that are reasonable to commit to... things that have been demonstrated to be "right" or "good commitments" through analysis, argument, evidence, and logic. That sort of commitment is the anathema of dogmatic assumptions.

I have a very negative view of "dogma" I guess is what I'm saying. Even your definition of it. But I think most people assume a definition closer to mine.

On the topic of Humanism being an ideology? It's a discussion worth having. I think Humanism is (the the most basic sense) an ideology. But the word "ideology" is a loaded term. In popular use, it can be almost synonymous with dogma. I think when dogmatic and non-dogmatic (or even anti-dogmatic) ideologies are differentiated, a humanist may feel more comfortable referring to humanism as an ideology.

So I think the discussion is more properly basic. "My tire is low on air. Therefore, I OUGHT to go fill it at the gas station." This isn't a scientific statement. But it is nonetheless reasonable. You don't get the ought from the "is." You get it from understanding the ideal state of your tires, and comparing it to its current state.

How do you know the ideal state of your tires, or it's current state?  You see where this is headed.  Both of those statements are at well at-home in natural sciences.  Talking about psi and materials and load after all.  Those sentences are missing, but would provide clarity - ofc they're only missing in the sentences above (and also in how we communicate our oughts, fwiw) - but that shouldn't be taken to mean that they aren't there.   We love silent premises.

Appropriate to the thread, Hume was considering those moral systems of his day and began his problem thusly -

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not.

He may not have been so skeptical of the moral systems discussed today, particularly in that it's been resolved multiple times for different moral systems, though no particular way of resolving the issue means that we can't pose the question still and again (the silent premise in that being that those resolutions are inaccurate).

I think that if a person begins with the notion that moral x's are or must be something other than natural or analytic x's - it's not going to be surprising that they fail to find their moral x' in those places - even if those moral x's were there, and obviously so, staring them right back in the face.  We may desire more from morality than it is.  The "deeper" explanation that we sometimes reach for.  Maybe there is such a thing, and maybe there are oughts and moral questions that must refer to such a thing.  I don't personally think that there is, but assuming that there were, there are probably still at least some oughts that resolve to synonymous claims in the natural sciences.

The go-to example being pleasure-ought.  A pleasure-ought is almost trivially accommodating to scientific (or empirical..if we prefer) inquiry.  It's hard to maintain that there's no way to bridge the two.   More an issue in that silent premise up above that we believe that's an inaccurate response, not an impossible response.
[/quote]

Well then let's get this silent premise "unsilented":

1) My tires run most efficiently at 32 psi
2) My right front tire is at 25 psi
3) It is good that my tires run efficiently.
4) I ought to do what is good.
Therefore, I ought to fill my right front tire to 32 psi

Premise 1 and 2 are based on empirical observation. I mean ethical non-naturalists love empirical date in their premises, but they also see that premise 3 comes from an understanding of what is good. I don't see how the logic follows (how the ought gets into the conclusion) without premise 3. Yeah, premise 3 is a no-brainer. But it isn't derived from studying sense data in the world. It is derived from reason/understanding alone. Premise 3 is not a description of a feature in the world. Premise 4 is an axiom. Probably one you accept. As you probably agree, it isn't worth debating. If someone disagrees with premise 4, they simply aren't interested in morality. I put premise 4 there for due diligence, since invisible premises came up. You could replace this with other axioms "I desire that my car run efficiently"... "I ought to do what I desire" etc. But I left it the way it is to keep parallels with moral thinking easy to see.

That's where I am. I don't want to see more in morality than there actually is. But, but I think premise 3 (an understanding of some kind of good) is necessary for moral propositions to follow logically. I'm not starting with the assumption that "moral x's are or must be something other than natural x's." I'm starting with the assumption that premise 3 is needed to make the proposition follow. And, upon examination, premise 3 is not discoverable by bare empirical investigation.

There has been a revival of an old discussion among ethicists (where some ideas are revised) that has breathed new life into Moore's non-naturalism. YouTube lecture. I'll post it here if I find it.

[polymath257]

Well then let's get this silent premise "unsilented":1) My tires run most efficiently at 32 psi
2) My right front tire is at 25 psi
3) It is good that my tires run efficiently.
4) I ought to do what is good.
Therefore, I ought to fill my right front tire to 32 psi

Premise 1 and 2 are based on empirical observation. I mean ethical non-naturalists love empirical date in their premises, but they also see that premise 3 comes from an understanding of what is good. I don't see how the logic follows (how the ought gets into the conclusion) without premise 3. Yeah, premise 3 is a no-brainer. But it isn't derived from studying sense data in the world. It is derived from reason/understanding alone. Premise 3 is not a description of a feature in the world. Premise 4 is an axiom. Probably one you accept. As you probably agree, it isn't worth debating. If someone disagrees with premise 4, they simply aren't interested in morality. I put premise 4 there for due diligence, since invisible premises came up. You could replace this with other axioms "I desire that my car run efficiently"... "I ought to do what I desire" etc. But I left it the way it is to keep parallels with moral thinking easy to see.

I would frame 3 and 4 a bit differently.

3. If my tires run efficiently, I will save money and be safer.
4. I have a goal to save money and be safer.
5. So I should fill my tire to 32 psi to meet my goal.

The 'should' statement comes from the goal I have. That goal may or may not be 'good' in a larger scheme. But if I want to achieve my goal, certain actions need to be done.

The difficulty comes in selecting the goals. For example, having the goal of killing all of my enemies is not one that most societies recognize without limitations. Hence, my goals may well conflict with your goals. The question of whose goals take priority is, in some senses, the goal of laws and of morality (two very different things, I would point out).

And, I would say that in both law and morality, the idea is that there are more worthy goals and less worthy ones. There are goals that promote a smoothly functioning society and those that do not. There are those that promote happiness and well-being and those that do not.

The is/ought distinction seems to me to ultimately be a question of goals. The 'is' side has no goals: it says what various courses of action will lead to. The 'ought' chooses between the possibilities so as to meet certain desirable consequences. What makes a consequence desirable is the next issue, of course.

[Belacqua]

[...]

The is/ought distinction seems to me to ultimately be a question of goals. The 'is' side has no goals: it says what various courses of action will lead to. The 'ought' chooses between the possibilities so as to meet certain desirable consequences. 

Yes, this makes sense to me. I usually phrase it as an "if / then" statement, where the "if" part states what the goal is. If we want X result, then we should take Y steps to get there. The X part, the goal, is not provable in the way that scientific things are provable. (Even though it may be a goal which every reasonable person agrees on.) The Y part, the method, may be debated as to how well it aims toward the agreed-on goal. That the Y part may be proved by science doesn't mean that ethics is something decided scientifically -- the goal is still a judgment call.

Some goals or "ifs" would be so obvious that it would be silly to disagree. (Though I suspect some argumentative people on this forum might try.) So for example we could argue that it's better not to have cancer than to have it. If not having cancer is good, then it's good to keep carcinogenic stuff out of the environment. From there you can debate what kind of legislation is most effective for that end.

But as Aristotle warns right at the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, we can't ask for more precision in a field than the subject will bear. Ethics isn't math. So even obvious statements like "carcinogens are bad" might involve a certain fuzziness in practice. Too much sunlight causes skin cancer, but not enough is also bad. 

Anyway, I think that ethical arguments work best if we find some deep basic goal which every reasonable person will agree on, and work out the methods from there. 

What makes a consequence desirable is the next issue, of course.

I still like "human flourishing."

[The Grand Nudger]

There's pretty much no end to potential 3's and 4's and no reason not to include them in consideration other than time constraints. In a natural and objective system, a larger collection of (sometimes conflicting) facts to make this consideration from is desirable even if there's no time in the moment to consider them all (hence deontology). In a natural and objective system, consideration of a broad range of facts may not lead to a good outcome (because we don't live in a vacuum) - merely the least shitty one.

An is can be a goal. Someone else's goal very much is an is-of-them. Our oughts are personally referenced. Because some other schmuck -is- trying to kill me, I ought to or need to or should come up with some response to that. If the schmuck was my tire, a solution presents itself. If I want to die, a solution is already at hand. I suppose that if a person wanted to die and that decision effected only them, there would be no moral import to the safe operation of driving a vehicle whatsoever. Fill your car up with accelerant, light the low pres tires on fire, and go jump school busses with it. No moral liability there. If, otoh, you're driving on a road or driving a bomb into a daycare - then there probably is a hell of alot of moral liability. Fill the tires up, or leave them flat, respectively.

Just as there's no single answer to why filling up our tires would be good, there may be more than one singular answer to whether or not it is good to fill up our tires. Assuming that there would be, or insisting that there must be (lest we have a problem with a system) is demanding that this non vacuum we live in provide us with something that it doesn't. Uniform and absolute circumstances to any given act or outcome - with at least one good possible course of action or outcome. In that sense, we're not actually registering a valid complaint about a specific system - but a standard gripe about the world and it's many cognitive difficulties, obstacles, and opportunities.

There has been a revival of an old discussion among ethicists (where some ideas are revised) that has breathed new life into Moore's non-naturalism. YouTube lecture. I'll post it here if I find it.

Moores non natural realism is well at home in natural realism.  The non natural in moores formulation is an explicitly novel use of the term. That was the weakness of the position in the first place. The famous example being that he thought that we may as human beings have an innate moral sense which does accurately pick things out in the world at least sometimes, that we could know some moral things a priori. Confronted with the possibility of a person who did not possess this ability, however, he implored them to go watch a group of adults beat an infant to death. Observation and experience. Insomuch as it' getting any new life, it's getting new life not for it's system, but for the manner of it's rejection of some moral questions as, essentially, dumb as a box of rocks and/or blind.

All that said, maybe we do possess such an ability, and maybe we can know some things a priori, and some moral things. Still, as before, seems like there's room for us to learn things beyond whatever innate ability we have, and pick out even more things of moral import than our intuition (which moore thought was completely natural, lol) might pick out. Providing even greater clarity and specificity than what would amount to "This is what my brain apprehends as bad when I see it, and I know it when I see it". It might also be useful to have some sort of system to determine when our moral intuitions as innate ability fail us. In that we're entertaining the possibility of that ability getting it right sometimes, it might also get it disastrously wrong for perfectly valid and self contained reasons.

Brings me round to the notion that different moral systems strengths and weaknesses are complimentary. I think that natural objectivism, for example, is most useful when you have alot of time on your hands and you're considering moral failure or exclusively suboptimal decision fields. I wouldn't try to sit down and Deep Thought my way through a present crisis of moral import. Or, put another way, the moment when your truck is careening off the road or into that daycare probably isn't the moment to ponder over any moral facts of the matter at hand from moments ago. You've got a new matter to deal with now, the trigger having already been pulled on that gun.

To Moore and to current analytic realists (now mostly scientific naturalists) - the idea that we can't prove good™ is as ludicrous for all of the same reasons as the contention that we couldn't prove gravity. Scientific naturalists take it a step further. Not only can we prove good, we can test it. Here, Moores formulation utterly fails - if only for the moment. The claim that humans possess an innate moral sense has become alot more testable than it was when moore (or anyone before him) presented it as a possibility. It (or something like it) may end up being true, and it's truth may come at the cost of it's objectivity or realism, in that case.

[vulcanlogician]

To Moore and to current analytic realists (now mostly scientific naturalists) - the idea that we can't prove good™ is as ludicrous for all of the same reasons as the contention that we couldn't prove gravity.  Scientific naturalists take it a step further.  Not only can we prove good, we can test it.  Here, Moores formulation utterly fails - if only for the moment.  The claim that humans possess an innate moral sense has become alot more testable than it was when moore (or anyone before him) presented it as a possibility.  It (or something like it) may end up being true, and it's truth may come at the cost of it's objectivity or realism, in that case.

Yeah. Moore's ethics has some issues. He even made pretty bad errors in logic in his Principia. But I think it's a pretty good attempt to answer Hume. And I also think that he's on to something by saying "goodness" is a simple concept. Further, I think he articulated something clearly that Plato was on to concerning "the Form of the Good." And while I think Plato was largely wrong in his assessment of the Form of the Good, there was a grain of truth in Plato's idea. I think Moore clarified something that Plato was right about... removing much Platonic Wrongness™ in the process.  

On a good day, I think that moral naturalism is quite plausible. To return to the tire example, maybe I'm asking too much to insist that "well-inflated tires are good" be explicitly expressed as a premise. A moral naturalist may say that we can observe that tires run most efficiently at 32 psi. And then when someone asks "what's the most efficient air pressure for my tires?" well, there it is (empirical science can figure this out without referring to an abstract ideal): "The best air pressure is 32 psi." Likewise when someone asks, about moral questions, similar scientific assessments can be made which put all matters to rest.

But Moore's theory is still worth working on. I'm not ready to abandon ship. I found the lecture I referred to earlier, by the way, in which the (very beautiful) philosopher Nandi Theunissen unpacks some Moorean ideas as they are accepted today and relates them to aesthetics among other things. She adequately describes the problem in very clear terms in the first ten minutes. I wonder if what she calls "GF theorists" wouldn't tend more toward moral naturalism. To bring in an example she offers: according to a GF theorist, a novel is "good" because --and only because-- it is "good for someone"-- ie. they find the experience of reading the novel beneficial for them. Where as a Moorean would want to say, "The novel is good for them because it is a good novel. End of story.

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The difficulty comes in selecting the goals. For example, having the goal of killing all of my enemies is not one that most societies recognize without limitations. Hence, my goals may well conflict with your goals. The question of whose goals take priority is, in some senses, the goal of laws and of morality (two very different things, I would point out).

And, I would say that in both law and morality, the idea is that there are more worthy goals and less worthy ones. There are goals that promote a smoothly functioning society and those that do not. There are those that promote happiness and well-being and those that do not.

The is/ought distinction seems to me to ultimately be a question of goals. The 'is' side has no goals: it says what various courses of action will lead to. The 'ought' chooses between the possibilities so as to meet certain desirable consequences. What makes a consequence desirable is the next issue, of course.

I think philosophers are going to hone in on this problem of "how do we know which goals to select?" Because it's pretty uncontroversial that once you've decided which goals are best, the oughts become clear.

As a mathematician, I'm sure you're aware of the view that ultimately mathematics cannot produce truth statements. Ultimately it is only a "useful fiction." That's something that I struggle with because (I've largely forgotten the argument) but I was convinced by it when I encountered it years back. But even so, it still seems that the pythagorean theorem says something true about right triangles. And I'm sure, in day-to-day practice, mathematicians assume something similar.

I think that morality is real in the same sense that mathematics is real. Ultimately (and I mean ONLY when you seriously lay the stink eye of skepticism on it) is morality a fiction. But for all intents and purposes, moral philosophy, with proper axioms CAN produce truth statements... just like (for all intents and purposes) mathematics can make truth statements about right triangles.

My issue is, if people are going to treat morality in this way, they ought also treat math and science in this way. People want to say "science can produce truth statements"-- "math can produce truth statements"-- but moral theory cannot. I think they apply the same amount of skepticism that renders math a "useful fiction" to morality but fail to apply the same amount of skepticism to math or science.

I love skepticism. I think it's all fine and good to be skeptical about morality. In fact, I advocate such a thing. But you can have runaway skepticism. You can wonder if the table in front of you or the chair you are sitting on is actually real. And again, I think it's wonderful to explore that kind of question. But people need to be aware what level of skepticism they use. An astronomer needs to assume "Jupiter is actually there," at some point to make accurate observations of its hydrogen content. If he is unwilling in this regard, he might be apt to ignore many things his observations reveal to him. I mean, why pay attention to those observations?

In short, I think morality is just as real as mathematical or scientific postulations. No more. No less. Maybe it's all "useful fiction" in the end. But, if that's the case then: oh well!

So, along this vein, I think we can ask something like, "What are the most worthy goals?" and come up with objectively true answers. I don't mean The One and Only Answer™. I mean, a workable theory. Something like Newtonian physics that can be (and should be) improved upon. Much debate and observation and questioning ought to transpire, but I think we can get there.

Will everyone agree in the end? Hell no. But people don't agree about proven scientific fact. Look at creationists. Just because a creationist will never accept that the world is more than a few thousand years old, doesn't mean the rest of us can't look at the data and come to a better conclusion. There will always be controversy in moral theory. And the masses will often prefer the cruder theories that religion provides to more accurate ones.

Doesn't mean that (in the end) there isn't a more accurate way to see moral postulates. I think there is. And for this reason, I think morality is objective (rather than subjective).

[The Grand Nudger]

Good link. I really enjoy the portion about object oriented attention right at the end...and then the subsequent q/a about moores unapprehended world of value. What about the trees, she wonders. I like to use a caveman and a fire extinguisher.

Without rehashing it in full, what gives the fire extinguisher value? Is it the cavemans goal of not dying in the burning terror box we used our time machine to beam him into?
(we have all sorts of cool toys and no moral reservations as to their use in my thought experiment world, lol)

Well, no. That's a statement of his goal, but not a description of why the fire extinguisher is good-for accomplishing that goal. That explanation will be synonymous with a scientific claim about the chemical composition of the can - which remains unchanged whether anyone apprehends it, both before and after our caveman realizes (or is shown) the use to-him. In fact, it's only useful to him, extrinsically useful, because of it's intrinsic utility in suppressing fires.

His appraisal is subjective, and it can change based on some fact about him changing (his state of knowledge about fire extinguishers, in this case) - but the utilitarian value of a fire extinguisher is there even if there's no one there to apprehend it, even when people fail to apprehend it, and even when there are no fires to put out. She get's on to that at the very end - with relational realism. The value is real, (meaningfully)mind independent and object oriented - but exclusively and uniformly apprehend by human beings with regards to it's relationship to us.

Demonstrating the use of the fire extinguisher to the caveman doesn't create the value, doesn't change anything about the can or the fire or even the cavemans use-value beliefs, but does show the value in relation to him. It's not subjectively and non emprically good-for putting out fires, such that it's use-value is created ex-nihilo in the mind of the observer. That's just a tick of human moralization that we're very well aware of, even if we find it difficult to divorce ourselves from (and perhaps even imprudent to divorce ourselves from)...in practice.

[polymath257]

polymath257The difficulty comes in selecting the goals. For example, having the goal of killing all of my enemies is not one that most societies recognize without limitations. Hence, my goals may well conflict with your goals. The question of whose goals take priority is, in some senses, the goal of laws and of morality (two very different things, I would point out).
[quote pid='2031987' dateline='1617589063']

And, I would say that in both law and morality, the idea is that there are more worthy goals and less worthy ones. There are goals that promote a smoothly functioning society and those that do not. There are those that promote happiness and well-being and those that do not.

The is/ought distinction seems to me to ultimately be a question of goals. The 'is' side has no goals: it says what various courses of action will lead to. The 'ought' chooses between the possibilities so as to meet certain desirable consequences. What makes a consequence desirable is the next issue, of course.

I think philosophers are going to hone in on this problem of "how do we know which goals to select?" Because it's pretty uncontroversial that once you've decided which goals are best, the oughts become clear.

As a mathematician, I'm sure you're aware of the view that ultimately mathematics cannot produce truth statements. Ultimately it is only a "useful fiction." That's something that I struggle with because (I've largely forgotten the argument) but I was convinced by it when I encountered it years back. But even so, it still seems that the pythagorean theorem says something true about right triangles. And I'm sure, in day-to-day practice, mathematicians assume something similar.

I think that morality is real in the same sense that mathematics is real. Ultimately (and I mean ONLY when you seriously lay the stink eye of skepticism on it) is morality a fiction. But for all intents and purposes, moral philosophy, with proper axioms CAN produce truth statements... just like (for all intents and purposes) mathematics can make truth statements about right triangles.

My issue is, if people are going to treat morality in this way, they ought also treat math and science in this way. People want to say "science can produce truth statements"-- "math can produce truth statements"-- but moral theory cannot. I think they apply the same amount of skepticism that renders math a "useful fiction" to morality but fail to apply the same amount of skepticism to math or science.

I love skepticism. I think it's all fine and good to be skeptical about morality. In fact, I advocate such a thing. But you can have runaway skepticism. You can wonder if the table in front of you or the chair you are sitting on is actually real. And again, I think it's wonderful to explore that kind of question. But people need to be aware what level of skepticism they use. An astronomer needs to assume "Jupiter is actually there," at some point to make accurate observations of its hydrogen content. If he is unwilling in this regard, he might be apt to ignore many things his observations reveal to him. I mean, why pay attention to those observations?

In short, I think morality is just as real as mathematical or scientific postulations. No more. No less. Maybe it's all "useful fiction" in the end. But, if that's the case then: oh well!

So, along this vein, I think we can ask something like, "What are the most worthy goals?" and come up with objectively true answers. I don't mean The One and Only Answer™. I mean, a workable theory. Something like Newtonian physics that can be (and should be) improved upon. Much debate and observation and questioning ought to transpire, but I think we can get there.

Will everyone agree in the end? Hell no. But people don't agree about proven scientific fact. Look at creationists. Just because a creationist will never accept that the world is more than a few thousand years old, doesn't mean the rest of us can't look at the data and come to a better conclusion. There will always be controversy in moral theory. And the masses will often prefer the cruder theories that religion provides to more accurate ones.

Doesn't mean that (in the end) there isn't a more accurate way to see moral postulates. I think there is. And for this reason, I think morality is objective (rather than subjective).

I come at it from a slightly different point of view. I ask what it is about a subject that allows it to produce truth statements. I believe it ultimately is depndent on some method of conflict resolution.

As an example, physics and the other 'hard' sciences have a fairly specific process if two people have different opinions: look for some experiment or observation that would distinguish the two views and conduct that experiment or observation to see who is *wrong*. If there is no such experiment of observation possible (even in theory), then the two views are regarded as equivalent and *both* are accepted or rejected together based on other observations.

In math, there is a fairly well structured way to resolve differences: one person produces a proof or counter example, according to certain well-defined rules, and the proof or counter example is scanned to be sure nothing outside of the agreed upon axioms is used. If no proof or counter example can be found, the matter is left unresolved. It may even be that it can be proved that no proof is possible either way (that the result is independent of the axioms). In that case, *both* views are considered to be legitimate. If both a proof and a counter-example are produced and verified, we have a problem.

In these cases, the existence of a dispute resolution procedure is why, in my mind, it is possible to make truth claims. At the minimum, falsehoods can be eliminated.

So my question for morality is how we can resolve disputes. If one person says that 'eating people is wrong' and another says 'eating people is a good thing', what steps can we take to resolve the dispute? Is there a way that we can eliminate one view or the other and at least say it is false?

I don't seek a process that will answer ALL questions of this sort. There may be practical obstacles to whatever is required (just like we might not currently have the technology to resolve a scientific question or have a proof or counter example in math). But is it possible to resolve at least a large collection of interesting cases in an unambiguous way? In what cases do we see the dispute as a non-dispute?

Thoghts?

[The Grand Nudger]

Scientific realists would tell you to use the exact same process to resolve those disputes. Pleasure-ought.

Let's say you have two pure hedonists, but these two pure hedonists have a disagreement as to whether or not some thing is good. We set out in the world to see whether or not the thing they claim to be good or bad does..or does not, provide, create, or increase pleasure.

In a dispute between a hedonist and a not-that-ist, we set out to determine which of the two opposing claims better represents our observations of reality.

In principle, simple..but that doesn't detract from the difficulties we might face in practice. It may even be that there are some moral conflicts which we do not posess the knowledge or the ability to resolve - but even this doesn;t make those questions unresolvable. These would not be problems of either system

Rather, it's a statement about our competence, at least first. Dispensing with concerns there, we might still offer that some moral conflicts are -objectively- unresolvable to the exclusive or majority benefit of one side or another. I think that you might find that this is our moral conclusion in a great many cases, and especially in cases of immense personal, moral, and even existential import. Earlier, we couldn't determine whether we thought that killing a human being was always bad, or, if it were, whether it would always deserve an equivalent level of moral condemnation between two otherwise dissimilar examples. The difference between evil, malice, tragedy, and circumstance. Moral resolution is not a requirement of moral objectivity or moral naturality. Objectivity and naturality are terms which express a way of looking at moral things - not the claim that we will be able to resolve every or even any specific moral conflict. We hope so, we think it works like that in other cases, but..ofc, we can always get it wrong. Perhaps moral conclusions, in the full light of objectivity, are ambiguous because there is much ambiguity in real life. Perhaps there are moral disputes, because there is much to dispute in the moral import of real life. Our systems are clean and explained and conceived of in vacuum, but the world does not present itself to us this way, and an objective assessment is based on the particulars of -that-.

Consider my caveman earlier. How would you convince him of the value of the fire extinguisher? Well I'd show him how to use it and figure that much would carry him over. To the cannibal..I'd eat my livestock, then his livestock, then his children, then his spouse, then his mother and father and his cousins and his aunts and his uncles......and....... if he still hadn't figured it out..him. If, after all of that, he still claimed he couldn't see any difference or problem with eating people at all..I'd be content to declare that person morally incompetent....and probably more than just morally. Not that it would matter, since he'd be dead or dying and the world would be free of at least one cannibal even as it created another.

[vulcanlogician]

So my question for morality is how we can resolve disputes. If one person says that 'eating people is wrong' and another says 'eating people is a good thing', what steps can we take to resolve the dispute? Is there a way that we can eliminate one view or the other and at least say it is false?

We have to agree on axioms, ie. take one thing or another to be self-evident. Hedonism has a pretty good axiomatic foundation. We all know the experience of pain or pleasure. Consider drinking your favorite beverage. Now consider holding your hand over a flame. One of these experiences has the qualitative effect of "bad" or "No!" Likewise, the other experience carries with it enjoyment: "good" or "Yes." From this observation the hedonist concludes that pain is bad and pleasure is good. The "hard" sciences are ultimately based on empirical observation (sense data). The hedonist is using a similar foundation, but rather focuses on the qualitative aspects of the senses.

So, once the hedonist accepts the conclusion that pleasure/happiness is good-- pain/misery is bad, all that needs to be done is plug this formula into moral queries. Does this act cause large amounts of pain and suffering? Then it's bad. What is the best birthday present to get my wife? Something that will make her happy. Is it wrong to let millions of people starve? Well... yes... because starvation involves a lot of pain and suffering.

And it isn't controversial whether pleasure or suffering really exist. Biologists and neuroscientists understand that these are real, observable phenomena.

Hedonists have worked out problems such as "bad things cause good feelings" (crack cocaine), and "good things cause pain/suffering" (muscle aches during your morning jog). To the hedonist, there are instrumental and intrinsic good. An instrumental good is a good that you use to get another good. Like money. If you couldn't spend it, money would be worthless. Likewise, instrumental goods are not good in and of themselves. They are a means to an end. Long story short, the pain from a morning jog is an instrumental good. It is (long term) giving you good health. Is good health good in and of itself? The hedonist says no. We want good health because good health brings us pleasurable life experiences. In the end, pleasure (to the hedonist) is the only intrinsic good. Likewise, crack cocaine isn't bad because it's bad to feel the high from crack. It's bad because (long term) it has the potential to create a large amount of suffering, both for the user and his friends or family.

So that's one moral theory. It has valid axioms. Everything that follows from there is purely logical. It depends on no dogma or superstition, and it's principles are not subject to people's whims or opinions. It's objective... not subjective. And that's my position: morality is objective. I'm not arguing anything more than this.

There are good challenges to hedonism, which is why I personally think it's incomplete... but completeness of a theory is not something we ask of the hard sciences. There are problems with some scientific theories, as good as some of them are. Same goes with moral theories. The point is, it is adequate enough for our needs.

If he was reasonable, I would hope I could convince a cannibal it was wrong to eat people. Well... unwilling people. If this person entered into contracts whereby he exchanged money for the right to eat a person's body after they die, hedonism would say nothing is wrong with such an arrangement. A hedonist might even pronounce it good, so long as the cannibal experienced enjoyment in the act, and the person didn't really care about their corpse, and was happy to receive the money.

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Good link.  I really enjoy the portion about object oriented attention right at the end...and then the subsequent q/a about moores unapprehended world of value.  What about the trees, she wonders.  I like to use a caveman and a fire extinguisher.  

Without rehashing it in full, what gives the fire extinguisher value?  Is it the cavemans goal of not dying in the burning terror box we used our time machine to beam him into?  
(we have all sorts of cool toys and no moral reservations as to their use in my thought experiment world, lol)

Well, no.  That's a statement of his goal, but not a description of why the fire extinguisher is good-for accomplishing that goal.  That explanation will be synonymous with a scientific claim about the chemical composition of the can - which remains unchanged whether anyone apprehends it, both before and after our caveman realizes (or is shown) the use  to-him.  In fact, it's only useful to him, extrinsically useful, because of it's intrinsic utility in suppressing fires.  

His appraisal is subjective, and it can change based on some fact about him changing (his state of knowledge about fire extinguishers, in this case) - but the utilitarian value of a fire extinguisher is there even if there's no one there to apprehend it, even when people fail to apprehend it, and even when there are no fires to put out.  She get's on to that at the very end - with relational realism.  The value is real, (meaningfully)mind independent and object oriented - but exclusively and uniformly apprehend by human beings with regards to it's relationship to us.  

Demonstrating the use of the fire extinguisher to the caveman doesn't create the value, doesn't change anything about the can or the fire or even the cavemans use-value beliefs, but does show the value in relation to him.  It's not subjectively and non emprically good-for putting out fires, such that it's use-value is created ex-nihilo in the mind of the observer.  That's just a tick of human moralization that we're very well aware of, even if we find it difficult to divorce ourselves from (and perhaps even imprudent to divorce ourselves from)...in practice.

Glad you enjoyed it. I actually skipped the Q&A because so often the audience can be tedious and annoying after a philosophy lecture (and hers was so good, I didn't want to ruin it). Nice to know that there more good stuff to be found. I'll have to check it out.

[JohnJubinsky]

So I've never been that good at explaining to a theist how I justify my morality without God because I seem to fall into the trap where everything is just subjective and that kind of frustrates me.

Like if I say rape is immoral and a theist will say but that's just my subjective view. It's the law, sure but there is nothing fundamental grounding why it's wrong, it's just society and consensus agreeing that's it immoral. If, for example, society and consensus agreed that slavery was moral then it would be moral, etc.

I'm not well versed in the morality arguments, but I want to learn more so I can actually defend my moral foundation against theists because its something will inevitably come up in a debate. Your input, advice would be appreciated.

I think that morality should be founded in treating others fairly based on who is loving and who is not and to what degrees. (The more loving the more worthy of respect and the less loving the less worthy of respect.) This is something I believe in and I don't see how theists could credibly refute it because they could be cornered into being unloving themselves if they try to.