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Morality - Subjective? Objective? Intersubjective? Intrasubjunctive?
Grid System
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You are behaving as if it is not important at all, or rather that the fact that it is not important to you overrides any importance it may have to her. You haven't actually argued why you get to say what is and is not important.Grid System wrote: »I don't want to say that the fact that somebody made rules obligates you to follow them. I want to say that if people care about how they are treated, that obligates you to treat them properly. If you don't treat them properly, then you are behaving as if it is not important even though it is, to them. It may not be important to you, but you are not the only person whose opinion matters. You're still in an environment where it is important to someone.
Bingo. Here's the fundamental disconnect— I am behaving as if it is not important to me. This is the case. I am further behaving as if it's not important to me if it is important to them. This is also the case. There is no contradiction here. I am acting fully in keeping with my own judgment.
I think we're not going to get anywhere though because of a fundamental difference in paradigms. You say, "why should I care about her?" and I say, "who am I not to care about her?" I don't think either of us can satisfactorily answer the other's question.
Inherence isn't the issue. The issue is acting in a way which denies the reality or equal moral weight of other persons.There is nothing inherent in a human consciousness that obligates me to treat her nicely...
I don't think it does. People have all kinds of right or wrong ideas about all kinds of things, and not just because some authority says so.Doesn't recognizing that you have a perspective undermine your entire assertion of absolutism? My whole argument is that every moral actor has a perspective, and these perspectives cannot be prioritized because to do so requires a moral actor.I engage my moral intuitions and view them through a filter of logic. I might be doing things wrong, of course, but that doesn't make the entire project useless.
I have to go to sleep now.
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Did you read my post? It's pretty simple.
Really, though, my question is simpler than that. I recognize morality as descriptive, so the question becomes, "why do I care?" And I don't like to be the four year old in the room, but that's basically my strategy: I'm going to keep asking "why" until you come up with either a logical loop, see above, or a "because I say so." I want you to realize that moral judgments cannot have a fundamental basis in logic.
Again, I'm not talking about authority. There isn't actually such a thing; other people are just another factor which contributes to your decision-making process. You're still thinking in absolutist terms. Moral perspectives cannot be prioritized, except subjectively.
I'll make it concrete once more: You say that people have ideas which are either right or wrong. By what process do you make that judgment? Is your judgment objective or subjective? Now imagine you're watching yourself make that judgment, and for the sake of argument say this time you think you're wrong. Same questions.
Again, you're conflating "can someone be objectively moral?" with "is there an objective moral reality?"
...and the same thing.
Again, the mere fact that our ability to discern the universe is hampered by our limitations is no reason to throw out the notion that there is a best way to act towards others.
The simple fact is, we all conduct our own lives as though happiness were the object of the game. Even people who practice severe self-denial do so in the mane of future happiness, either here or in the hereafter. It's essentially the only basic part of moral discourse that we all share. I'm not "objectively stating this" I'm stating that it's what the evidence leads one to believe.
No it doesn't, not at all. A single human being has a much greater rate of survival when surrounded and supported by other human beings, making murder definitely immoral in the biological scheme of things.
Whether you have respect for her feelings matters if you have an obligation to do so, any assertions notwithstanding. And you do have that obligation because there is nothing about you that makes her feelings worth less in the universal sense than yours.
And here we go again, talking in circles.
If that's the case, your project is going to run into trouble because I'm not sure what you mean by "fundamental basis".
And if you "recognize morality as descriptive" then we aren't even talking about the same thing.
I don't make the judgment. Nobody makes the judgment. The rules are simply there by virtue of the fact that there are beings for the rules to apply to. Or they exist counterfactually or something.
The evidence also leads one to believe evolution via natural selection as being objectively true. That doesn't stop people from believing that the universe is 6,000 years old. Disagreement over what is true has little bearing on what actually is true.
You're confusing the role of people to be that which constitutes truth when in reality people merely arbitrate it.
...
Having said that, are you saying that the evidence compels you to believe that concern for happiness over suffering is not something ultimately shared by everyone? Keep in mind that I am not suggesting that everyone shares the same joys or fears. What makes some happy may make others unhappy.
"In the biological scheme of things" is a phrase which makes absolutely no sense and implies a maddening and inane muddling of two completely different realms, morality and objective reality. Please stop that.
This, too, makes no sense. You have not successfully demonstrated that you've solved Hume's Is/Ought problem.
You may attempt to do so, but it must be solved before you are allowed to make statements like that.
The key problem is not the trivially true, descriptive statement "concern for happiness over suffering is something ultimately shared by everyone or most everyone."
The problem is that you cannot derive a moral obligation that extends towards any individual person from the descriptive fact that people usually want to further happiness. To wit:
Person A: "Most people want to do good and further happiness."
Person B: "Okay."
A: "So you should further happiness and minimize suffering."
B: "Why?"
A: "Because if most people do that most people will end up happy and not suffering as much."
B: "Why is that a moral goal?"
A: "Because... it just is, alright? Suffering is bad."
- OR -
B: "Why is that a moral goal?"
A: "Because society will function better."
B: "Why is keeping society functioning better a moral goal?"
A: "Because... it just is, alright? Society should function smoothly."
See the problem?
Problem solved?
You also need it to be the case that you ought not let yourself die of thirst.
What are all the infractions on this page for? I mean I'm all for automatic infractions if anyone starts to look like a relativist at any point.
ITT: Infractions.
Hardly. If you are thirsty, you do not have a moral obligation to drink. "Ought" in the is/ought problem refers to moral imperatives.
For instance, let's say you come upon a person drowning in a lake. You are of able body, and are perfectly capable of saving the person. The person is screaming at you to save him. He is drowning right before your eyes.
Everything I just said was merely describing the scene. Those four sentences were nothing more than properties of reality. Two people are there, one is about to drown, one is you on the shore, the sun is shining, the grass is green, etc.
I ask you, and Hume asked you, this: What is it about that scene that enables us to make the significant jump from "There is a person drowning and you could save his life" to "You must save his life or attempt to do so in order to be moral"?
On the surface, Hume's question seems inane. It wouldn't inconvenience you much, and it would save a life. Of course it's your moral imperative to jump in and at least try. But if you think about it a little more, you start to run into a whole mess of flat out assumptions in the prior reasoning. You have assumed that his life is worth saving, you have assumed that life in general is better than death, you have assumed that his suffering should be ended by you attempting to save him, and you have assumed that suffering is "bad."
What basis do you have for those assumptions? Certainly, your gut feeling, and certainly the backing of society and every decent human being on the face of the earth. But that's not enough. At some point, you need to recognize that there is nothing in the cold, hard facts of reality that translates directly into moral imperatives.
We create morality of our own volition. We assign and ascribe meaning to various things, from babies to life to happiness. But that doesn't mean, just because nearly every human being in the world has this moral framework, that it is objectively true. You haven't demonstrated that.
Ayn Rand attempted to demonstrate that, and failed miserably. She did not solve the Is/Ought problem, and neither did you.
Consciousness is valuable and valuable things are worth protecting, saving, preserving, etc.
The only necessary "cold, hard" fact is that conscious beings value their own conscious experiences, so consciousnesses are valuable.
Granted, in the case of the drowning man I am assuming that he does, in fact, value his consciousness and isn't trying to kill himself. I prefer to err on the side of caution.
Why would you have a moral obligation to drink? To not die? Why is life worth preserving? Why is your life worth preserving?
Because a "non-moral ought" is not a universal command that you are applying to every human being on the planet. A "non-moral ought" is merely a casual opinion.
Why did you quote my post if you weren't going to read it? Why is consciousness any more valuable than rotting brain matter? Because you say so?
Yes, this is the case, but...
No, you just fucking did what I spent 5 paragraphs explaining that you can't do. Why is something valuable to every being just because a creature or entity values it?
Even if he did, that does not mean you have a moral obligation to value what he values. You have failed miserably.
Because he is the sole arbiter of the value of his consciousness, if I do not value it, then I am objectively wrong about the value of his consciousness. So, in a sense, you're right that I don't have a moral obligation; my obligation is to not ignore the facts.
I know its easy to pick apart the long, the wordy and the incorrect but if you're going to claim to have derived an ought from an is you're going to need to have some very solid grounds.
I don't think so. In the case of drinking when thirsty I ought to drink because I would rather slake my thirst than not. We needn't push things so far as to engage my mortality.
Before this got split into its own thread this discussion was a tangent in the Altruism thread. Elki told people to stop or they'd be infracted - it was kind of a cryptic warning, apparently - but some people continued anyway.
I believe that I am stationary. My friend on the 4:15 believes that I am moving away from him at 85 mph. Some truths are relative. That said:
If you define happiness as that which is sought out and unhappiness as that which is avoided, then this is self-evident. And that definition is basically accurate, albeit reflective. However, I doubt that's what Grid, for example, is using it to mean.
So consciousness has an objective value that is determined only by the extent to which any individual consciousness values itself? So if I, say, do not at all value my consciousness, my consciousness does not have value and killing me would be like eating a grilled cheese sandwich (to pick a morally-neutral event)?
Your lengthy exposition makes little sense. You have not demonstrated why I am compelled to listen to your value judgment that you place on your mind. Insofar as everyone has their own consciousness, and each consciousness is separate, each individual consciousness and self-assessment lies firmly within the realm of the factual; that is, the not-ought, the is. You have yet to bridge the divide.
That is ludicrous. You are misusing the word "objectivity."
So, I have something in a cardboard box. I am the only one who has looked inside the box, therefore I am the only one qualified to determine the value of its contents. I say that the contents of the box are worth about fifteen million dollars.
Logically, you must also value the box at $15m. Correct?
Unless you say that you ought do what you want to.
I think Grid would come back and say that consciousness is a unique concept and that the logic does not apply to the box.
However, even more hideously, his logic can be applied to one's desires, or any other consciousness-specific event. For instance, if I am a sociopath, no one else shares the particulars of my desire to rape and kill little children while playing the song "Who Let the Dogs Out." And yet, since I am the only one to experience said specific desire, I am free to attach the ultimate value to it. So if anyone else values that desire at less than what I value it, they are objectively wrong.
I'm not sure it's possible for a conscious being to not value its own consciousness at all. If it were to happen though, and if it were possible to find that being, then I guess killing or torturing or doing what-the-hell-ever to it would be fine, sure.
You don't like the way I've bridged it. The bridge is there but you're refusing to cross it. Maybe it looks rickety and unstable to you, but here I am on the other side all the same.
You're ludicrous.
You have fallen into the ravine and died a horrible death. This entire argument was made on your way down.
Your bridge never existed.
I can look in the box in ways that we cannot look into consciousnesses.
Not at all. It's perfectly possible for anyone else to experience (the desire to go off) raping and killing children while playing "Who Let the Dogs Out." And if they can experience it, they can value it. It's not necessary to have or have had the experience in order to value it, the same way that it isn't necessary to own gold to value it. The sociopath is not the only person involved in establishing consensus.
It is not possible for people to experience everything that goes into the sociopath's specific desire. That is part of what consciousness means. Everyone can experience that desire in the same way that everyone has consciousness: they have similar consciousnesses and similar desires, but not the same one.
Sorry.
Also, repeat after me: consensus does not equal objective moral truth.
That's even better. This is a magic box, which nobody but me can possibly see inside. Now would you agree it's worth $15m?
More accurately the bridge existed only in his mind and the minds of some of the travelers with him, but not all. Also, the ravine existed only in his mind. So Grid and his bridge-believing buddies (who all see a different bridge and a different ravine, but so long as they don't talk about when they reach the beginning or end of their particular bridge there is no argument about the inherent bridginess of the bridge) are walking on their "bridge" and MikeMan is all walking with these people in a field wondering why they're going on about bridges and ravines.
I don't think desires are as complex as you're making them out to be. Certainly they don't approach the complexity of whole consciousness. Unless you elaborate what you mean by "everything that goes into the sociopath's specific desire" I can't see anything that would be necessarily unique to his particular experience of the desire.
His specific desire is in a way a reflection of his past experiences, his past feelings, his thoughts, and his personality.
In any event, I was attempting to illustrate the flaws with your thinking. You need to realize that you need to do a lot of work to establish that consciousness is the only moral thing in the universe that is both objectively valuable, and whose value is determined by itself.
Something like that.
We're getting too far off topic. You need to demonstrate that consciousness is a unique moral entity. You have yet to do so.
I don't think it makes sense to believe there are objective moral truths. Morality can be seen as a pattern in which to arrange society. Since human society is constantly evolving, the optimal pattern is always going to be in flux.
I think that, like scientific truths, it's less important to argue about which morals are true and more important to argue about the proper method for discovering those truths.
For scientific truth, some people believe that the proper method involves opening a religious text and seeing what it says, while others believe that you should empirically test and make observations, hypotheses, experiments—in other words, the scientific method. The scientific method does not result in watertight, objective "truths," since much of what we scientifically know is falsifiable and is often refined or replaced. But this method has proven enormously effective—and we prefer it more and more because it is effective.
Similarly, some people open religious books to discover moral truths, while others look at a variety of sources—history, social sciences, traditions, psychology—and try to figure out what types of laws work and what types don't. The "liberal method" of discovering moral truth, like the scientific method of discovering scientific truth, is open to later revision and refinement, but I would argue that it is the best method because it is the most effective at arranging society. Liberal societies are the most prosperous, stable, peaceful and draw the most immigrants. So the meme survives and spreads.
I was attempting to show how your reasoning was flawed by playing devil's advocate to your notion that minds alone can be self-assessed. In doing so I led us down a path of semantic games and off-topic rambling. For that I apologize, because the whole thing was in a sense irrelevant.
In actuality, I do not subscribe to your view that the worth of a mind is determined by that mind. I do not think you have adequately demonstrated that. If you would like to attempt to do so, I am all ears.
Merely stating that it is so does not do so, by the way.