Can we trust our Moral Intuitions?

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, moral intuition is the ground of non-natural realism, so that's one way out. I don't find natural realism to be ambiguous, though. It's sort of hard to see how it could be as it leverages facts of a given matter and reports it's conclusions based upon those facts in specificity. It could be wrong, very wrong..but ambiguous?

That john may be more or less culpable for x than steve and we may not know exactly what to do about one, the other, or both in that event....doesn't create ambiguity. In that context, it's specifically accurate to (natural) facts about john and steve as individuals, for example.

All that said, that must be an interesting experience of moral content. Mine is different. I often do see how I can intervene to improve things, that I have enough information, that I trust my assessments, reflexively give care, and..the subject of moral intuition....apprehend good and bad. I think that some form of non natural realism is probably true with respect to how we experience morality - which would make it a good descriptive moral theory, like cultural relativism - but I do tend to believe that the thing informing our intuitions are natural facts. That's the basis of any harm-based ethical system.

[Alan V]

I don't find natural realism to be ambiguous,  though.  It's sort of hard to see how it could be as it leverages facts of a given matter and reports it's conclusions based upon those facts in specificity.  It could be wrong, very wrong..but ambiguous?

I understand your point about facts being the basis of moral judgments.  But why intervene at all in a naturalistic system?  It would seem that most of our moral interventions have led to an even bigger problem with climate change, and at that point we have to reconsider our moral assessments and immediate human commitments versus the longer-term interests of humanity and of the natural environment.  At that point a lot of "obvious" moral assessments become more ambiguous, to the point that I personally am really only interested in climate change as a political issue.  Why save lots of people in the short run if the result is that even more die in the long run -- that sort of thing.

In other words, since I see pluses and minuses all mixed up together (which is how I see naturalism), it's hard to find enough information or to trust my own assessments enough to see the way clear to be concerned about much more than my narrow personal interests on one hand and climate change on the other.

As one climate change book title read, "This Changes Everything."

[The Grand Nudger]

Why intervene in a naturalistic system?  Do you mean, why do we intervene in the resolution of conflicts with a moral import?  All sorts of reasons.  Maybe some of us are just dooers, too, compulsive intervention.  We may also have something like a low tolerance for particulars evils, I guess?

I'm really in the dark as to what moral interventions you think have led to climate change being a bigger problem?  Similarly, when discussing the ambiguity you see, you appear to be referencing practical..not moral, ambiguity.  As in, you know the moral outcome™ - which is the least loss of life or the most help......you're just not sure what doing it would look like.  The nuts and bolts of how we arrive at it, and the very real concern (but only if we do..indeed..have a moral intuition or moral fact here) that what we do may have the opposite effect. The ambiguity itself appears to come down to changing circumstances and facts..but facts and circumstances cn and do change, and any system based on them will change with them. Same way that pissing in a stream would be immoral back when people were drawing their water directly from it..whereas today..not so much, even though pissing in someone's glass would be. The best we can do is try to keep up with those facts and circumstances as they come to us and tailor our conclusions and our efforts to them, right?

I did a quick google search..this the book?

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate is Naomi Klein's fourth book; it was published in 2014 by Simon & Schuster.[1] In it, Klein argues that the climate crisis cannot be addressed in the current era of neoliberal market fundamentalism, which encourages profligate consumption and has resulted in mega-mergers and trade agreements hostile to the health of the environment.[2]

b-mine
ital to point out a contended natural fact

That sounds as immoral as pissing in someone's glass would be. What do you think?

---

In fact, in light of that, I think I have a fun thought experiment that might directly answer one of your questions. Or, rather, give you an opportunity to directly answer it yourself with respect to your moral intuitions (or to moral fact,..whichever).

Imagine a world...exactly like this world. People are suffering, the climate is being destroyed, there's just a shitload of work to do and all of it is hard. Exactly like this world except for one respect. In that world..we're doing something about all of it.

Unbeknownst to you or anyone else, however, in just ten years, a giant asteroid will not only wipe humanity off the face of the earth, it'll wipe earth of the face of the solar system.

Does this fact change what the moral thing to do is, for that next ten years? Everyone, absolutely everyone is going to die in ten years. Does that mean that we no longer have a moral obligation to reduce suffering and repair damage for those ten years we have left? If we knew the asteroid was going to hit, would it mean that? We could ask the same question in the individual case, no imaginary worlds, no asteroid, this life. Does knowing for certain that I'm going to die, and that everyone else I know will one day die, and that all of those future people I'll never know no matter what we do will all, also, die..change my moral responsibilities while I'm alive? Is it necessary for a thing to be "the right thing to do" that it yields our intended outcome and we have absolute certainty that it will work...and, be persistent?

[The Grand Nudger]

Continuing...if those are the requirements of good as you see good, by intuition or by fact...a...you still "see good", which is to say you still have moral intuitions...and b, you've made good impossible... not ambiguous... as it entails that people are completely competent, can predict the future, and that none of our good™ works can be undone. That's simply not true of people or of future circumstance, and we certainly understand that to be the case in reality. Therefore..even though you "see good" as either intuition or fact, good is practically unattainable. Leading to a question...not of good, but of why bother to be good.

Does any of this help with regards to the question of moral intuitions trustworthiness?

The answer to that question, of why to be, from natural or non natural realism, is...no reason if you can't think of one. If you can't think of a reason to be good or do good, in light of all of that, it really doesn't even matter whether or not there is good. As even if there were, there would be no reason (or compelling reasons not to) do it. However, the question of whether or not we can trust our moral intutitions is not interchangeable with the question of whether or not we would be practically compelled or even empowered by their conclusions. Our moral intutitions may be trustworthy, and yet our moral field is nothing but shit. This is so much the kind of thing we call a fact that it can be predictably mapped (and make predictions of the mapping subject) on a simple two axis graph....and still..as you correctly notice, the world is what it is.

[Alan V]

Climate change is a major example of our human successes leading to a big failure. That's the kind of paradox which is intrinsic to any naturalistic system in my opinion. There are always pluses and minuses to every possible action, in differing proportions. So the more we are successful, the bigger the problems we have because of our successes.

From my point of view, we can argue in favor of some moral course of action only when, in the cost/benefit analysis, the benefits obviously outweigh the costs. Helping people is usually taken to be the gold standard for moral behaviors, but when you are helping some but hurting others (including future populations), you are faced with morally ambiguous situations. Climate change has progressed to the point where helping some people without taking climate change into account is necessarily hurting other people. That confuses our moral intuitions, which are usually based on idealism rather than the rather stark trade-offs of the real world.

That's really all I am saying. Climate change was just an obvious example.

[The Grand Nudger]

The benefits of my installing a 2k sqft walk in storage freezer outweigh the costs, but does that mean that I have a moral responsibility to do so, or that the moral benefits outweigh the moral costs? That's pretty much a perfect case in point. Every single cubic inch of cold storage is an environmental problem, but it's a human necessity, how do we figure out how many inches to spare?

Helping one group of people without taking into account the harm you do to another is not a moral consideration. It's the abrogation of moral consideration for the practical benefit of a limited group. Here again, I'm wondering what the now described as obvious example of moral intervention that exacerbated climate change is?

Not, mind you, because I think there can/could be no such thing, just curious. That would stand as a moral intuition of your own. I'm never confused when I'm hurting people™. My intuition points it out and I hurt people knowing that I do so, for effect, as my example from earlier might communicate.

[DLJ]

@vulcanlogician

See? This ^^^ is what happens without the moral vs ethical distinction.

@Alan V

Hi there. Good to see you again. Have you resolved your 'consciousness' yet?

[The Grand Nudger]

Well....I mean, there is no distinction to some of us? Morality is what we do in private, and ethics is what we do in public? Some of us do good things when no one is looking.

[Alan V]

@Alan V

Hi there.  Good to see you again.  Have you resolved your 'consciousness' yet?  

Back in September, I marked one post in the Consciousness discussion at the Atheist Discussion forum for your notice:

https://atheistdiscussion.org/forums/sho...#pid316300

I'm still (slowly) working on my summary of Dr. Hobson's ideas.

I don't know enough about the philosophical debates about ethics and morality for more than what I considered a quick aside. However, that got drug out a bit. My apologies.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Well....I mean, there is no distinction to some of us?  Morality is what we do in private, and ethics is what we do in public?  Some of us do good things when no one is looking.  

Some of us ONLY do good things when someone IS looking.

Boru