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Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
#51
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
(November 4, 2021 at 2:53 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: That out of the way, you said something I think is interesting.  Do you really think that moral decisions amount to a coin flip?  That would suggest you had no moral intuitions at all (this, ignoring and not asserting the accuracy of those intuitions)?  Pick some charged scenario, give me the moral pluses and minuses, presumed to be just about equivalent, as you see them?  Or, in contrast, give me an example of something you think has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and explain why the presumption fails in that specific case?

Ambiguous moral decisions likely amount to a coin-flip to decide.  If it is easy to make a moral determination, then the choice is obviously straightforward.

But to clarify:

A lot of people have strong identifications which help guide their decision-making.  They cheer on the home team for example.

I don't have such strong identifications, in part because I don't trust my conditioned emotional responses.

All of that being the case, you might better understand why I avoid ambiguous situations.

Here is a concrete example: I must make a decision between A and B.  If I chose A someone dies, but if I chose B someone else dies.  I have no way of deciding between the choices given my information, though no doubt if I actually knew the people involved I might be able to make a better determination than by the flip of a coin.  However, I would typically avoid such an ambiguous situation altogether because I don't want to make any choice which results in someone dying.

Avoiding morally ambiguous situations seems like a useful choice to me, given the above.
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#52
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
Sure, but what is an example of an ambiguous moral decision? I ask because I've never personally been presented with a single morally ambiguous decision in my life. I've always known (or had had an apprehension of) right from wrong, no matter how I acted on that knowledge.

Just like people may never have any actual need for a microscope...it may be the case that the moral decisions (or any other intuitive acts) which commonly present themselves in our life don't need careful scrutiny (or satellite targeting) to hit their marks.

Trying to avoid the morally ambiguous may be like trying to avoid bigfoot. You'll succeed...but not..actually..because you tried.

Cheering on the home time doesn't strike me as morally ambiguous, just common. Good lord, omnibenevolent master of the universe, make their boys miss and burn their fields to the ground and prevent them from a moments good rest..and all that.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#53
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
(November 4, 2021 at 3:14 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Sure, but what is an example of an ambiguous moral decision?  

Ones for which we don't have enough information to make easier decisions.  So that includes almost any philosophical hypothetical, since they are made intentionally ambiguous.

The point is that we don't need to make those decisions as long as we avoid the situations within which they might arise.  Instead, we should concentrate on what we know enough about.  That will keep us more than busy enough.
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#54
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
I get what the term is supposed to mean, but do you have a referant in mind that we might discuss? I don't find very many philosophical hypotheticals morally ambiguous.

Give me a hypothetical, I'll show you what I mean. -not, mind you, show you that I'm right, or even that I would do right if I thought I knew what it was...just present an intuition. If morally ambiguous positions are profligate.....almost any philosophical hypothetical..and what doesn't count as that?..... Does it make sense to say that we can somehow choose to avoid them?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
Reply
#55
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
(November 4, 2021 at 3:14 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Cheering on the home time doesn't strike me as morally ambiguous, just common. 

I was using that example to define an identification, not a morally ambiguous situation.

If you want to plug an identification into a morally ambiguous situation, just say that one of the two people who die is someone you already know.

But I gave you an example of a morally ambiguous situation already. Simply, there is no information included to make any discrimination at all unless you know something about the people.

I would further argue that we can never really have enough information to make moral decisions except in certain specific cases. For instance, if you save one person and not another, who knows what the person you saved will do in the future compared to the one who died? We simply can't know the end results of ambiguous situations.

And if you are not particularly on the side of humans as a species, all bets are off.
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#56
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
I've made the decision to shoot one of two people I know before - and I shot the better man because he was the better man. I was close enough to see in his eyes that he didn't understand why and that the fact I was doing it hurt him. Not the shooting, the choice and the ease of the choice itself. He never actually felt the shot. There was no moral ambiguity about it, and I'll feel like shit forever on account of it - but I didn't hesitate for a second to do it.

That's all that moral intuition is, as...say, non natural realism, contends. That you know that what you're doing or seeing is right, or wrong (you may have it factually wrong, it's about feeling that you know, not being right - at least at the bottom). You may still be conflicted..I'd go so far as to say that you're expected to be conflicted about your intuitions (even when they're "good" ones). That when apprehending a thing you immediately recognize the shape or character of it's moral importance, no matter what you may then do for any number of reasons, or none at all. Intuition doesn't tell you what to do (though some people report there being a strong suggestion), it informs you about what you are doing.

To a realist, and a non natural realist is still a realist - all moral considerations are made with specific reference to the situation...but that's all contained in the term. To say that things are specific to circumstances is not to say that they're ambiguous, that's an explicitily contradictory proposition. Specificity is the antithesis of ambiguity.

It's not ambiguous, for example, when you watch a group of adults curbstomp a child....though there could be any number of reasons they do so, up to and including the same reason I executed my friend. Which I'm absolutely certain was a bad thing to do, though I'd do it again, and it needed to be done.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
Reply
#57
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
To put it another way, what is ambiguous about my seeing ass, and just drilling the ever living fuck out of it? Is it not a discernable by fact or by intuition that the ass exists, and that I can drill it?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
Reply
#58
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
(November 4, 2021 at 3:34 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I've made the decision to shoot one of two people I know before - and I shot the better man because he was the better man.  I was close enough to see in his eyes that he didn't understand why and that the fact I was doing it hurt him.  Not the shooting, the choice and the ease of the choice itself.  He never actually felt the shot.  There was no moral ambiguity about it, and I'll feel like shit forever on account of it - but I didn't hesitate for a second to do it.

That's all that moral intuition is, as...say, non natural realism, contends. 

So moral intuitions are about filling in the blanks in our perceptions?
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#59
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
The idea of a moral intuition is that it's not a blank in perception. It's a bare apprehension. Literally, that you "know" bad when you see it. That you don't go through some lengthy moral argument immediately prior to any moral apprehension. That, for at least some bad, if a person asked you how you knew it was bad, the most honest anserer you could give was "here, come take a look at it being done, you tell me..is that bad?"

I want to lay aside whether or not it's a misapprehension. Because moral intuition allows for a situation where we aren't 100% reliable - some of our intuitions, at least, can be wrong - but also because it doesn't matter whether it's an accurate or inaccurate apprehension with respect to whether or not a person has moral intuitions.

So, to really needle in on that, I get that your intellectual position is one of ambiguity. Is that how you experience moral content, though? The question of whether or not we can trust our moral intuitions presumes that we have them. Do you have moral intuitions, have you found them to be trustworthy?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#60
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
(November 5, 2021 at 7:40 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: So, to really needle in on that, I get that your intellectual position is one of ambiguity.  Is that how you experience moral content, though?  The question of whether or not we can trust our moral intuitions presumes that we have them.  Do you have moral intuitions, have you found them to be trustworthy?

I see many situations in moral terms.  I have some notion of ideal situations, however unrealistic they might be.

What I don't see is how to intervene in such a way as to improve on them.  I either don't have enough information, don't trust my own assessments, don't care enough about other people, or don't see how to separate the good from the bad in any given situation.  That is what remains ambiguous.

So my idealism based on my cultural conditioning is mitigated by my realism.

Do you see some way out of the ambiguities of naturalism?
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