The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules
document is now in effect.
Morality - Subjective? Objective? Intersubjective? Intrasubjunctive?
Posts
I already have, in the post you quoted and ostensibly read.
You are the one claiming that there are objective moral truths. It is up to you to demonstrate why that is the case, and why "abiding by the worth that each consciousness assigns itself" is one of them.
You must also explain how you have solved the problem of deriving moral imperatives from mere descriptive facts.
The onus is on you.
No, scientific truths are correct descriptions of reality. They're not just empirically adequate models. There are infinitely many empirically adequate models for any set of data, but only one truthful description of the actual situation.
You might dispute that we have any such scientific truths so described. However, that's a whole different kettle of fish.
This may be coincidentally true, however, that's not the reason why liberal societies are desirable. Even if the only liberal society in the world existed on a remote mountaintop in Bhutan, and there were no immigration or spread, then that would still be the best society in the world. Liberal societies are good because they're the most conducive to the happy and free lives of their members, not because they're best fit for world domination.
Thus far your arguments amount to "I'm not convinced." That's quite alright. It just doesn't leave me much to work with.
I have explained why.
Here, I'll bold it this time; maybe you'll be able to read it better:
You can't derive a moral imperative from a descriptive fact.
Here are some examples of descriptive facts:
1. People's lives are better when they're happy.
2. People value their own lives.
3. People value their own consciousnesses.
4. People suffer when they die slowly.
Here are some examples of moral imperatives:
1a. You should improve people's lives.
2a. You should value people's lives.
3a. You should value other people's consciousnesses as much as they do.
4a. You should not cause suffering or death.
Please propose a method whereby I get from, say, 1 to 1a. I guarantee you your method will amount to "because I say so" or "just because," unless you've had some stunning philosophical revelation I'm not aware of.
We do not know what the "actual situation" is apart from the model. For us, the model is the reality, and when the model changes, our perception of reality changes with it.
And our positions are not mutually exclusive. Something can be a correct description of reality as well as a social construct. But since humans are not capable of trasncending our mortal physical bodies to glimpse "reality" apart from our social constructions of it, I don't see what on earth is the point of discussing it in this way.
I think it's the same kettle. And, as before, we're not actually disagreeing on anything substantive here. We both agree on which scientific truths should be considered "correct" or "true," as well as the methods by which to ascertain them. We are only disagreeing on the metaphysical nature of that "truth," which, I think, ultimately boils down to nothing more than semantics.
For example: you (presumably) believe that the second law of thermodynamics is a reflection of fundamental reality. I believe it is the most useful description of an observed phenomenon we have. These positions are not mutually exclusive, but my position is more useful than yours, since "fundamental reality" is invisible to us, if it even exists in the first place.
By what criteria would it be the best in the world?
And why should we believe your criteria over another arbitrary set of criteria?
I think you are mischaracterizing my position, which is surprising since we've debated about this before. I do not think "world domination" is the criteria for whether or not a moral system is fit—at least, it's certainly not the only one.
No, this is important. You're saying that everyone else is obligated to agree with my value. You're saying that if someone doesn't behave as if they think my box is worth $15m, they are not merely morally wrong— they are logically wrong. That's a ridiculous claim.
Alright, let's break down what you said. You said
This is all true, and I agree with this.
Relative value is consensus based. That consensus does not manufacture, out of thin air, an objective value. A hundred billion people could come to a consensus on something but that does not give it an objective moral value.
Shaky at best (i.e. the Earth has value to people but they could never posses it), but I see where you're going and agree. You must keep in mind, however, that this value is just relative value. You have yet to address where an absolute, objective value would come into this.
Even if I were to buy that argument, it is merely trivially true, because we're talking about relative value here, not objective value. So yes, my consciousness is relatively highly valued by me, but that means jack shit in an objective morality sense.
This is where you fly off the deep end. You are not objectively wrong if you do not value it, as you have not been talking about objective value at all in the preceding argument. You have been talking about value obtained by consensus, which is relative value and relative moral worth.
Additionally, the entire thought experiment kind of falls apart because either the stuff in the box is stuff that anyone could have and thus be able to evaluate themselves, if you would only tell them what it actually is, or it is stuff that only you can have in which case it's indistinguishable from consciousness.
Relative value is relative because it is based on a consensus of more than one. When there is only one person in a position to determine the value of some thing, then that determination of value is not relative to anything. It's objective, it's absolute.
It is valued highly by you, period. The value is not relative (except maybe to other things that you value).
So I offer the box as collateral on a five million dollar home loan. They say, okay... But what's it worth to me? What can I do with it? In your view it would be logically incorrect for the bank to turn me down.
[/quote]Additionally, the entire thought experiment kind of falls apart because either the stuff in the box is stuff that anyone could have and thus be able to evaluate themselves, if you would only tell them what it actually is, or it is stuff that only you can have in which case it's indistinguishable from consciousness.[/QUOTE]
Anyone can possess the box, but I'm the only one who can value it.
As anything besides a cardboard box, that is.
You're just pulling this out of your ass. I don't think you quite know what "objective" actually means. An objective morality would be one that would be true for anything, and everything, across all time and space. For aliens, humans, puppies, extra-dimensional dictators. It would still be true were the earth to get hit by a comet tomorrow and leave nothing but rubble floating around in space for all eternity.
1. Why does the consciousness itself get to determine its objective value?
2. How can an objective moral truth be derived from the self-assessment that a consciousness makes?
Any value a human puts on a thing is a relative value, unless the value said human puts on a thing happens to coincide with that thing's objective value, a strange property which you have not demonstrated exists.
No, what you're talking about is a creative hunch, an interpretation of value that adds unwarranted definitions to the term.
"Consciousnesses should be preserved" is not on the same order as "Matter exists."
Either the box and all its contents are uniquely yours, in which case it's no different from consciousness, or the box is not uniquely yours, in which case you can't have a privileged position (let alone the only position) to determine value.
I own a charming young Negro man. He's worth about $1500.
Because there is nothing else that can determine any kind of value for it. Consciousnesses may be the only things with objective value, but hey, they seem to be unique in so many other ways, so why not?
If something has positive objective value then it deserves to be cared for.
Here I think we just have a fundamental disagreement. You're not going to convince me that the value a consciousness grants itself is still relative, and I won't convince you that it is objective.
Well, I'm sure glad we've cleared that up.
With arguments like these, I don't see myself convinced any time soon.
I'd propose that while we might not be able to derive an ought from an is, it is still the case that moral facts are reducible to naturalistic facts, or that they at least supervene on natural facts. That is to say, a situation is either good or bad because of its naturalistic description and no more, and situations with the same naturalistic description cannot differ in value.
This would be similar to my inability to take complicated derivatives: I don't know how to find the answer, but I know it's there.*
*(Of course, in this case I think I do know how to find the answer, but that's another distinct issue.)
I don't see how the idea of a person assigning objective value doesn't seem like a contradiction in terms to you.
Unfortunately, since situations with the same naturalistic descriptions are rare, we have a shaky basis for comparison. It isn't like criminals think up crimes with experimental rigor, nor do our laws come close to a GUT of morality. Thus there is always room for interpretation in applying law.
Also, your worldview has to be deterministic, since you otherwise would not believe the same situation should always result in the same value. Is a moral quantum state possible? I have no idea.
That wasn't really meant to be a guide to applied ethics, but rather a statement about what ethics themselves are.
Uh, no. If moral facts just are natural facts, then the same natural situation is always the same moral situation regardless of determinism or the lack thereof. Determinism is a red herring here.
So, someone who thinks their conciousness is worth more than anything else (ie, a sociopath) would be worth more than someone who puts the lives of others above their own? Someone who's contemplating suicide isn't worth anything? If your sense of self worth varies with your moods, so does your objective value?
I see two fundamental flaws with your reasoning. First, while nobody knows you better than you do, that doesn't mean you know yourself perfectly; in fact, I doubt there's anyone in the world who does. Second, even if you did know yourself perfectly, that doesn't mean your judgement would be perfect too. Far too many people think either too highly or too little of themselves for me to believe that.
Not really. That just shows the problem of making propositions without predicates.
Person A: "Most people want to do good and further happiness."
Person B: "Okay."
A: "So we went and made a public moral code based on that premise."
B: "Why?"
A: "Because if most people do that most people will end up happy and not suffer as much."
The arguments beyond that are purely practical ones that revolve around the trivially true, descriptive statement mentioned earlier.
For example, Christianity discourages recreational sex, even in married couples. Judaism requires it, to the point that a Rabbi must pleasure his wife at least six nights a week (whoever wrote tat section of the Talmud must have thought that women are as horny as men,. as the purpose of the sex quotas is to prevent a husband from undersatifying [I had the word a minute ago] his wife).
What makes you say consciousness has any value at all? Objectively, there is nothing particularly special (or "unique") about "consciousness" apart from it's relative complexity.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
You're talking past me. What you've described is a pragmatic approach towards making a moral code based on the goal of making people happy and not suffering.
That's not an absolute objective morality. I'm not sure if you think it is, but I suspect you don't and are just talking about pragmatic ways to keep things going in a way that minimizes suffering. That's certainly nice, and I agree with it, but it's not an objective morality that everyone is compelled to accept, or that is self-evident.
I never said it was.
What is objective (that is, true regardless of beliefs and theories) is that there is a means, in any given situation, for the individuals involved to act in such a way as to maximize the resulting joy and/or minimize suffering.
The question I suspect you want to ask is, "why should anyone care about joy and suffering?"
That's all anyone cares about. Any moral statement boils down to an outcome of joy or suffering. There's no "should care" about it. We do care.
Right. We are in agreement. That's all anyone cares about but that does not mean it is self-evidently true that one should care about it. It's not an axiom on par with "gravity makes things fall towards the center of the earth."
That's all.
For instance, some people don't care. We call them sociopaths. We shun them and we fear them. But the scary part is, apart from them not adhering to the normal human state of affairs, there's nothing we can condemn them for, because there's no absolute morality. We can lock them up, we can counsel them, we can study them, we can blame them. When you get down to it, though, they are merely choosing to reject our arbitrary (in the cosmological scheme of things) sense of right and wrong.
"Should" in what sense, and in what way does this have to do with what I have been talking about?
Sociopaths are ultimately an unfortunate outlier that are mitigated by the fact that few people look towards them as moral beacons.
I would also argue that, when you get down to it, they aren't "choosing" anything. They, like all of us, are merely the culmination of things that they had nothing to do with (and in this way, none of us deserves praise or blame for anything).
I feel like I should point out this is basically what I mean by descriptive morality: People try to do what makes them happy. That simple observation is much more useful than all the categorical imperatives you could try to come up with.
It might not. To be honest I don't know why we are having this conversation.
That's a whole 'nother kettle of fishies.
The question of "should" becomes relevant only if someone, unlike you, believes it appropriate to judge people for their actions and hold them accountable. If one does not believe it appropriate to judge anyone, as you are implying is your position, we are left with a mere descriptive morality, not a proscriptive one.
My comments are more accurately aimed at someone who does believe it is appropriate to condemn certain actions as being immoral.
Insofar as it's a useful exercise to make the world (my home) a better place, it's obviously important to hold people accountable for their actions. "Judging", I think, is probably an important component of this.
People deserve blame (and retribution) as much as a robot deserves blame and retribution for its own malfunctions. That said, holding us accountable for our actions does, in fact, have an effect.
It's funny that you say that seeing as how it is the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative.
Humanity must always be treated as an end in itself never merely as a means.
At the end of 4:430 in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals "the natural end that all human beings have is their own happiness" and "the ends of a subject who is an end in itself must as far as possible be also my ends"
So yeah, it is a categorical imperative.
This is an observation. This is an imperative. They are not connected.
Those same people could fire back that they are trying to make the world a better place. When you go to answer them, what do you have to back yourself up other than your personal desire to see the world how you would like to see it?
So why is it appropriate to "judge" others?
I don't doubt that everyone is essentially doing their best (essentially, all anyone can do), but once suffering is meted out, we reference the public moral code to see what appropriate actions, if any, should be taken to correct future errors.
"Judging", I should clarify, is a word I'm using almost entirely in the "to form an opinion after careful consideration" vein, so I'm not sure whether that word is a tangent that is worth pursuing.