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Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
#21
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
Yeah, np, some people like em, some people don't. I think they get difficult too. Is that something you think is true? That if the world were full of sado masochists, slapping people in the face would be good..not be seen to be good, actually be good? Well...why? If the suppressed premise is that it would in that world, be pleasurable - and what is pleasurable is good - ..that's yet another form of objectivism. Hedonistic realism, as vulcan was discussing. That the property of an act is the good or badmaking property, and therefore acts with the property of pleasure making are good making.
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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#22
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
(October 4, 2021 at 4:35 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: @Spongebob
As for lincoln - he never considered himself an abolitionist and had alot of typically shitty views on the subject of racial equality.  You may be wondering what accounts for the legend of lincoln..and that, might be our moral intuitions.  Of imagining what the best version of the man was,..and, being generally well regarded, shifting him in memory closer to that picture of a better thing.  Had the south won, would you believe him to have been a simple villain as a citizen of The Confederate States?  Slave labor was detestable, but the sudden imposition of poverty and economic disruption was also intolerable - for many of the same reasons.  It became a feature of his public speaking that he saw the whole thing as a shit sandwich and would do whatever was better for the country.  It was the union he had in mind, not the immediate welfare of any of it's constituent groups...and, we're talking about a person who by consequence of his position made more than one abhorrent decision with vast and far reaching moral import.  When we introduce the fact that not every situation has a morally acceptable outcome, we dispense with the binary thought attached to objectivism and the need to lionize our heroes to conform to that standard at the same time.

Actually this is 100% irrelevant to my question regarding Lincoln.  What I asked was why would someone who grew up surrounded by a culture that accepted slavery in every way choose to reject slavery as immoral.  Lincoln himself expressed this, it isn't revisionism from historians.  According to Lincoln own words, he despised the practice from as long as he could remember.  Now it's possible there was some revisionism going on in his own memory, but its clear that he was never an advocate of the practice and the older he got the more he opposed slavery.  Thanks for the unsolicited history lesson but it's not relevant to this particular thread.  It's about morality, not civil war history.  Read the OP.
Why is it so?
~Julius Sumner Miller
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#23
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
Maybe give it a second thought. The op was describing moral views as a product of cultural norms, and how this is an issue for ethical theories like non natural realism. With respect to lincoln - both those views we would describe as good today and those we might describe as bad today were, as you yourself note, influenced by the circumstances of his birth and upbringing. All of this, and not just the one set, were his moral intuitions (or..at least would be, in that view).

Our societies produce complex moral characters with conflicting imperatives and varying categories of intent. It's fortunate that lincoln indulged in one set over the other, but the question at the heart is whether or not this intuition is reliable at all. The counter examples of his bad faith or ethics (and, obviously we're talking about a person here) stand as cautionary examples.
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
#24
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
(October 4, 2021 at 5:30 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Maybe give it a second thought.  The op was describing moral views as a product of cultural norms, and how this is an issue for ethical theories like non natural realism.   With respect to lincoln - both those views we would describe as good today and those we might describe as bad today were, as you yourself note, influenced by the circumstances of his birth and upbringing.  All of this, and not just the one set, were his moral intuitions (or..at least would be, in that view).

Our societies produce complex moral characters with conflicting imperatives varying categories of intent.

Your post was directed mostly at historical revisionism, not cultural influence on morals.  If you want to assert the cultural influences on those who opposed slavery, then that's relevant.  The point is simply this, if moral objectivity is a myth and morality is completely relative and highly influenced by culture/society, then what causes the outliers in society who buck cultural moral norms?  Where does that tendency to deviate from what culture says is moral come from?  What causes it?  I used Lincoln as one example but I'm certain there are plenty of others.  And perhaps it's not right to pinpoint one human but ponder the likelihood of a small network of outliers.  But then what causes that network to deviate?  Where does the first point of deviation come from?  And why?
Why is it so?
~Julius Sumner Miller
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#25
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
It's a good question...I want to say that we all reassess our private opinions from time to time and the combined weight of that thought yields alot of revision (moral and historic). I guess one of the more difficult aspects of a hard adherence to moores non naturalism is that at the end of the day, we might have to acknowledge that people can be morally defective. That lincoln...and other people like him in any other similar context, saw things for what they were. The others..not so much. This, too..even though it's a product of non natural realism, is a problem for non natural realism. An example of the power of culture to shape our norms - which then inform our moral decisions.
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
#26
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
(October 4, 2021 at 6:02 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: It's a good question...I want to say that we all reassess our private opinions from time to time and the combined weight of that thought yields alot of revision (moral and historic).  I guess one of the more difficult aspects of a hard adherence to moores non naturalism is that at the end of the day, we might have to acknowledge that people can be morally defective.  That lincoln...and other people like him in any other similar context, saw things for what they were.  The others..not so much.  This, too..even though it's a product of non natural realism, is a problem for non natural realism.  An example of the power of culture to shape our norms - which then inform our moral decisions.

But when you say someone like Lincoln (or whoever for that matter) sees thing for what they are, does that not suggest some sort of objective morality?  How can that be?  Or is it simply a matter of good ideas finding purchase in a fertile mind?  But then, where do those ideas come from?
Why is it so?
~Julius Sumner Miller
Reply
#27
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
You indicated earlier that you felt logic and reason could account for slavery being an abominable practice. That suggests that there's something about slavery which is a bad making property regardless of whether or not a given subject apprehends it. That does seem to be the position that lincolns society was in at the time in question, highlighted, ofc, by dissenters like him. That's one way that an objective morality may be. Existent, demonstrable... and largely ignored.
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
#28
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
(October 3, 2021 at 6:18 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: In ethics, some theories rely heavily on our moral intuitions. In a way, all thought experiments (like the trolley problem) test an ethical problem against our intuitions. The metaethical theory I like most (G.E. Moore's moral nonnaturalism) requires us to have accurate moral intuitions in order to make correct moral judgments.

But there's a problem here. Psychological study suggests our moral intuitions are heavily influenced by norms acquired from our cultural environment. Why does this matter? Well it suggests that (if we are relying on moral intuitions to furnish us with correct judgments) then there may be fundamental moral disagreement.

Fundamental moral disagreement is different than "regular ol' moral disagreement" because it suggests that rational people with accurate information can come to two different moral conclusions. All philosophers are aware that moral disagreement exists. That's not a problem. That can be explained away by prejudices and bad information (false premises). The problem is moral disagreement in "idealized circumstances."

Some realist theories (like moral naturalism) do not depend on moral intuitions, but still an analysis of them is still worthwhile.

Anyone have opinions on this? Can we trust our moral intuitions?
  
When  science & medicine conflict with logic,   guess who wins?  

With logic,  atheists insist theists have BoP.  In science/medicine,  we don't burden the incompetent.  We also don't send the delusional out looking for something which doesn't exist & then mock  the delusional's  search results.  
This type of logic would be a 3rd degree felony in a clinical setting where  YECs belong.  
We also don't demand the delusional prove their delusion is real.  We don't debate the delusional to prove our superiority.  When the delusional are of noncompliant nature,  we note them as such instead of noting our disgust for the delusional.  
This ^^ comes naturally to me as a clinician.  Gawd is a cognitive issue, not a logical or philosophical issue per my perspective which I do not expect lay ppl to have any familiarity with.
When atheists hold theists up to elite standards of logic/scrutiny & then refuse to care about elite standards of science /medicine, 
then they  are  corrupted

(October 4, 2021 at 11:57 pm)Ghetto Sheldon Wrote:
(October 3, 2021 at 6:18 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: In ethics, some theories rely heavily on our moral intuitions. In a way, all thought experiments (like the trolley problem) test an ethical problem against our intuitions. The metaethical theory I like most (G.E. Moore's moral nonnaturalism) requires us to have accurate moral intuitions in order to make correct moral judgments.

But there's a problem here. Psychological study suggests our moral intuitions are heavily influenced by norms acquired from our cultural environment. Why does this matter? Well it suggests that (if we are relying on moral intuitions to furnish us with correct judgments) then there may be fundamental moral disagreement.

Fundamental moral disagreement is different than "regular ol' moral disagreement" because it suggests that rational people with accurate information can come to two different moral conclusions. All philosophers are aware that moral disagreement exists. That's not a problem. That can be explained away by prejudices and bad information (false premises). The problem is moral disagreement in "idealized circumstances."

Some realist theories (like moral naturalism) do not depend on moral intuitions, but still an analysis of them is still worthwhile.

Anyone have opinions on this? Can we trust our moral intuitions?
  
CAn we trust our moral intuitions?  
I vote no. 
When  science & medicine conflict with logic,   guess who wins?  

With logic,  atheists insist theists have BoP.  In science/medicine,  we don't burden the incompetent.  We also don't send the delusional out looking for something which doesn't exist & then mock  the delusional's  search results.  
This type of logic would be a 3rd degree felony in a clinical setting where  YECs belong.  
We also don't demand the delusional prove their delusion is real.  We don't debate the delusional to prove our superiority.  When the delusional are of noncompliant nature,  we note them as such instead of noting our disgust for the delusional.  
This ^^ comes naturally to me as a clinician.  Gawd is a cognitive issue, not a logical or philosophical issue per my perspective which I do not expect lay ppl to have any familiarity with.
When atheists hold theists up to elite standards of logic/scrutiny & then refuse to care about elite standards of science /medicine, 
then they  are  corrupted
Reply
#29
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
(October 4, 2021 at 11:57 pm)Ghetto Sheldon Wrote:
(October 3, 2021 at 6:18 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: In ethics, some theories rely heavily on our moral intuitions. In a way, all thought experiments (like the trolley problem) test an ethical problem against our intuitions. The metaethical theory I like most (G.E. Moore's moral nonnaturalism) requires us to have accurate moral intuitions in order to make correct moral judgments.

But there's a problem here. Psychological study suggests our moral intuitions are heavily influenced by norms acquired from our cultural environment. Why does this matter? Well it suggests that (if we are relying on moral intuitions to furnish us with correct judgments) then there may be fundamental moral disagreement.

Fundamental moral disagreement is different than "regular ol' moral disagreement" because it suggests that rational people with accurate information can come to two different moral conclusions. All philosophers are aware that moral disagreement exists. That's not a problem. That can be explained away by prejudices and bad information (false premises). The problem is moral disagreement in "idealized circumstances."

Some realist theories (like moral naturalism) do not depend on moral intuitions, but still an analysis of them is still worthwhile.

Anyone have opinions on this? Can we trust our moral intuitions?
  
When  science & medicine conflict with logic,   guess who wins?  

With logic,  atheists insist theists have BoP.  In science/medicine,  we don't burden the incompetent.  We also don't send the delusional out looking for something which doesn't exist & then mock  the delusional's  search results.  
This type of logic would be a 3rd degree felony in a clinical setting where  YECs belong.  
We also don't demand the delusional prove their delusion is real.  We don't debate the delusional to prove our superiority.  When the delusional are of noncompliant nature,  we note them as such instead of noting our disgust for the delusional.  
This ^^ comes naturally to me as a clinician.  Gawd is a cognitive issue, not a logical or philosophical issue per my perspective which I do not expect lay ppl to have any familiarity with.
When atheists hold theists up to elite standards of logic/scrutiny & then refuse to care about elite standards of science /medicine, 
then they  are  corrupted

(October 4, 2021 at 11:57 pm)Ghetto Sheldon Wrote:   
CAn we trust our moral intuitions?  
I vote no. 
When  science & medicine conflict with logic,   guess who wins?  

With logic,  atheists insist theists have BoP.  In science/medicine,  we don't burden the incompetent.  We also don't send the delusional out looking for something which doesn't exist & then mock  the delusional's  search results.  
This type of logic would be a 3rd degree felony in a clinical setting where  YECs belong.  
We also don't demand the delusional prove their delusion is real.  We don't debate the delusional to prove our superiority.  When the delusional are of noncompliant nature,  we note them as such instead of noting our disgust for the delusional.  
This ^^ comes naturally to me as a clinician.  Gawd is a cognitive issue, not a logical or philosophical issue per my perspective which I do not expect lay ppl to have any familiarity with.
When atheists hold theists up to elite standards of logic/scrutiny & then refuse to care about elite standards of science /medicine, 
then they  are  corrupted

Even if any of that is reliable, a gorilla in a tutu is still funny.

[Image: 1*JNy3p73U8mQAArhyoVUR-w.jpeg]

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#30
RE: Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?
(October 4, 2021 at 10:08 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: ...
Stich is saying proximal cues from the environment cause things that end up in the norm box. Let's take something not really morally loaded as an example. You are a young child in an indigenous tribe. You see that every morning all the women and girls are sent to obtain water from a nearby river, while all the men go hunting or tend to the crops. Those are the proximal cues in the environment.
...

Yup.  Douglas Adams put it well in relation to technology.

Note that being an atheist he says "natural order" not 'sacred order' (which is something I noticed in the Shweder research (used by J. Haidt for his Righteous Mind book) on Autonomy Ethics, Community Ethics and Divinity Ethics where responses relating to Natural Order and Sacred Order were grouped together).  

[Image: parent-presentation-digital-access-2015-...1433116106]

Same could be said about all social norms hence the oft observed tendency for people to become more conservative as they age.

(October 4, 2021 at 10:08 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: ...
From there leads a solid line (not a dotted line)... to the left-most box. The left-most box has two items: "identify norm implicating behavior" and "infer contents of normative values." So here, a a boy in the tribe being exposed repeatedly to the proximal cue of the women getting water and the men hunting would infer a norm using your "rule-relating reasoning capacity" (the next box). This would be something like: "The women get water. The men hunt." Even if such a rule is not explicitly stated, one could come to accept it as a norm. Explicit statement of the rule would be another proximal cue, but it isn't necessary for something to end up in the norm box.
...

"identify norm implicating behavior" and "infer contents of normative values" - Yup.  In Governance/Management/Operations-speak*, that would be about 'Principles'.

*For ease of typing I'll refer to this from now on as GMO (top-down design) or OMG (bottom-up evolution) Big Grin  How appropriate is that!  

So these could be articulated or unspoken principles.  So far so good. It's the development (programming) of the child's Baseline Comfort Zone i.e. what's expected/normal.

(October 4, 2021 at 10:08 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: ...
The next bit is counts a serious argument against the efficacy of moral intuitions. The norm box is empirically verified to influence emotional states. For example, you, as a young tribal boy go on the hunt with the men, and you see (for the first time in your life) that a woman has come along for the hunt. This causes an emotion in you (ie... this doesn't SEEM right... this isn't NORMAL... there is something WRONG with this...) and this in turn (solid line) affects your judgment.
...

I'm guessing you meant "counts as"?  Or did you mean "discounts"?

On my diagram I've included these "moral intuitions" or gut-feels (see the green lines on my diagram) because I think all organisms have this ability in various ways.  It's a very rudimentary stimulus-response system that we just happen to connect with words like 'emotion' and 'morals' and most likely has its origins in Centre of Gravity:
Lean too far and you'll fall out of the tree became stray too far from what the social group expects and pariahdom awaits you.

(October 4, 2021 at 10:08 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: ...
These things operate at a subconscious level. And Stich wants to argue that this sort of emotional entanglement (kluges) seriously undermines our moral intuitions. The big point is the empirically verified link between emotion and judgment.
...

I'd go with 'underpins' rather than 'undermines' because I'm OK with "moral intuitions" given that I see a distinction between morals and ethics (definitions will follow).

(October 4, 2021 at 10:08 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: ...
Now... for "other emotional triggers"... Stich recognizes that not every emotional trigger is resultant from an idea in the norm box. Let's say, you (as the tribal boy) were bitten by a tarantula multiple times one day, and the next day your friend wants to bring his pet tarantula along on the hunt. There's nothing in your norm box that says "this is a bad idea" (there's no rule against it that you've inferred from proximal cues) but your emotional system (triggered by the memory of being bitten) urges you to make the judgment that this is a bad idea.
...

Yup.

For that, there's an Event Management process:



(October 4, 2021 at 10:08 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:
Quote:The output appears to be a) "judgement" and b) post-hoc justification.  OK.  Not behaviour?  Hmmm.

Stich is concerned with judgments, and not behavior. That's why. Post-hoc justifications are also not really a concern of his either. It puzzles me that he put them on the chart, but, maybe he did so to show where they are in the causal chain.
...

I think that the post-hoc bit has been added due to the J.Haidt reference - that's definitely one of his conclusions and he refers to this as "our Press Secretary".

(October 4, 2021 at 10:08 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:
Quote:The two motivations (compliance and punitive) appear to be output (is that the 'behaviour' part?) when I'd expect them to be baseline references and therefore part of 'beliefs' (articulated ones or otherwise).

Compliance is a dotted line, so you aren't expected to take the link TOO seriously. Although the line between beliefs and judgments (which most philosophers take as axiomatic) is also dotted, so...

I see the link between emotion and compliance. I'm not exactly sure how it's relevant or why Stich included it on his chart. I'd LOVE to read the academic papers where he outlines this. I, like you, am hungry for an in-depth analysis on the items in the chart, but frustratingly (in the 10-ish lectures I've watched, he always spends like 5 minutes on it and moves on).
...

And yet, that's the bit that's most pertinent to what I do (best practices etc.) so yes, I too am curious.

(October 4, 2021 at 10:08 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: ...
The main thrust of the chart is that we educated Westerners aren't really so different from the tribal boy. We have proximal cues that result in different norms in the norm box. And the moral norms that the tribal boy has (ie. don't hit other people, don't kill other people) are fundamentally similar to norm conventions about women getting water and men hunting.
...

Quite.

(October 4, 2021 at 10:08 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: ...
Stich argues moral nihilism. He doesn't identify as a moral nihilist. He calls himself a moral skeptic. He even said that he's open to the possibility of moral objectivism (and presents a few bits of evidence in favor of it), but he ultimately feels that the arguments for nihilism are very strong.
...

And this is the main reason for having different words for the different parts of the system.  Yes, nihilism is correct.  Yes, moral-alerts (intuitions) happen.  Yes, societies have developed ethics (standards of right/wrong).  Yes, individuals jump between different justifications (sometimes in the same sentence).

(October 4, 2021 at 10:08 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: Would you mind walking me through your diagram? Does the tribal boy example fit it? Because then (since I already described that example) we could explore parallels. (It's cool if it doesn't work. Any summary/description of how your chart works is fine.)

Okey dokey.

First, clarification with terminology/definitions:

A moral vs. morality

Googly Wrote:Morality
Noun. Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.
Synonyms: ethics, rights and wrongs, correctness, ethicality
More: a particular system of values and principles of conduct.

I say definitions (plural) rather than definition (singular) because the above contains a number of elements:
- Principles
- "Ethics" as a synonym
- A system
- Values
- Conduct / behaviour.

Not specifically stated but implied are also... 'judgment' and 'measurement'.

This broadness / fuzziness / polysemantics is possibly why there is so much disagreement on the topic.

Incidentally, in my years as Mod on TTA with the occasional excursion here to see what troll-problems Big Grin might be coming our way, the main difference between the two fora seemed to be that TTA inclined to morals as subjective and AF leaned to objective.

This then is my (draft) definition of morality
An evolved, human governance / continuity management system. 
This system is an evolved extension (in the cognitive domain) of the pre-human immune system and limbic system and requires an ethical baseline (requiring memory), emotion-based thresholds, event-detection (e.g. deception detectors; a conscience) and reasoning. It is enabled / influenced by chemical inhibitors and inducers and social constraints and drivers.

So that was morality. And now for 'a moral'.

To Google again:
Quote:noun
1.
a lesson that can be derived from a story or experience.
"the moral of this story was that one must see the beauty in what one has"
synonyms: lesson, message, meaning, significance, signification, import, point, precept, teaching
"the moral of the story"
2.
standards of behaviour; principles of right and wrong.
"the corruption of public morals"
synonyms: moral code, code of ethics, moral standards, moral values, principles, principles of right and wrong, rules of conduct, standards/principles of behaviour, standards, morality, sense of morality, scruples, ideals
"he has no morals and cannot be trusted"

The first one, above, is fine. Indeed, more than fine. I think it's the real thing. In the same way that our immune system is storing data regarding shit that happens biologically (events, incidents, problems) and what fixes were attempted and which ones worked, our morality system is storing data regarding shit that happens socially. The latter can be vicarious (a story) or personal (experience).

I'm less happy with the second definition because of its overlap with the 'morality' definition, and prefer to separate the two parts.


Let's use 'ethics' for the 'standards of behaviour' and leave 'moral' as the first part. This removes part of the polysemantics issue.  

This would now mean that we can say that "morality is about how you live with yourself whereas ethics is about how you live with others".
Although having said that, ethics (unlike morals which can be reserved for the individual) is applicable at both the individual level and the community/organisational level.

Which leads nicely to the basis of my diagram.  It's just a little something I put together based on a definition of 'culture' used in the best practice manuals:

Quote:Culture is simply the aggregate of individuals' behaviours.
Organisational Ethics determine the values by which the society (or enterprise) want to live (its code).
Individual Ethics are determined by each person’s personal values/principles and are dependent to some extent on external factors not always under the group's/society's control.
Individual Behaviours which collectively determine the culture of the society are dependent upon both organisational and individual ethics.

So I'm making a distinction between morality (the biologically evolved system for detecting significant 'moral' events) and ethics (the baseline of beliefs/rightness) with which an individual or group identifies.

Thus, culture acts as both an enabler and/or a constraint on both the developing and developed (maturing and mature) individual depending on how you look at it. 

And that's the main thrust of the flow diagram's boxes and yellow lines.  The green lines relate to the moral (or non-moral) alerts (see the Event Management diagram above).

The left side is a depiction of an individual.  I have a slide for 'all of evolution on a page' but I'm still working on a 1-pager for the development of an individual (to include the architecture, customisation and configuration of body schema, extended body schema, mind schema and extended mind schema). The GMO/OMG bit will be a separate diagram that help to explain why Virtue Ethics, Consequentialism, Duty Ethics etc. are all correct when seen as thinking tools rather than One System To Rule Them All.

So, to the tribal boy.  
(I'm imagining a MAGA hat kinda tribal but I guess that post-dates Stich's lecture) Big Grin

Architecture has a couple of facets:
- The DNA building blocks
- The arrays that map e.g. actors and roles (e.g. men/women and food provider/nurturer).
Customisation is the early-life formation of the boy's principles and beliefs very much influenced by the environment in which he grows incl. phobias.  It's the development of the child's Baseline Comfort Zone (and discomfort, for that matter).
Configuration would include the plastic wiring of his neurons and perhaps his ability to get over the fear of tarantula or getting used to the idea that women can hunt.

So, Organisational Ethics would be the 'proximal cues' on Stich's diagram.

First sight of a woman hunter would be observation of someone else's Individual Behaviour (see pale purple rhomboid) that triggers an alert (see Event Management diagram).  

Was that enough of an explanation or did I miss something?
The PURPOSE of life is to replicate our DNA ................. (from Darwin)
The MEANING of life is the experience of living ... (from Frank Herbert)
The VALUE of life is the legacy we leave behind ..... (from observation)
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